Hurricane Irene

The flame of hate I have for the Media still burns bright. In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, that flame has now lit a field of viewers on fire too. The news today is all about how the storm was over hyped. There was a poll in my local paper asking if it “met expectations”. WTF; expectations? Wrong word choice. I didn’t have expectations, I had information, subsequent fears, and prepared accordingly.

They are devastated there isn’t more devastation. Disappointed that the East Coast wasn’t swallowed up by the Altantic, people are laughing, jeering, and forgetting…

PEOPLE DIED.

I am sickened by survivors running amuck making fun of the “non-hurricane”. They are just as blind as those who were fear-mongering beforehand (incidentally, the cross over between the two groups has got to be high- more on that later).

At least 21 people died. MILLIONS went without power. Thousands are stranded by floods. There is 10B worth of estimated damage (the B stands for billion).

Thankfully, as I sit here eating my emergency-cheesecake I bought (just in case things got real bad), I have power. A tree didn’t cause my house to crumble on top of me. Flood waters aren’t outside my front door ready to sweep me or my car away. Others can't be as thankful. As a nation, we were more prepared this time then we were for Katrina. Thankfully people bought provisions beforehand, headed evacuation orders, hunkered down. Thankfully the storm was down-graded and wasn’t a Cat 3 the entire time it was over land.

Those people who bought into the hype and thus induced hysteria; those who were fighting people at the store to secure their 13th case of water, those who were prophesying that entire cities would be wiped out. Those people feel silly. Those people are now making fun of what wasn’t. Those people are now just as bad as the media who sent them to the stores in frenzy in the first place. Those who weren’t freaking out beforehand, but were appropriately preparing by gathering emergency supplies without sending alarmist shock waves through their circles, are not upset: glad they had water & food for the weekend and didn’t have to risk going outside.

Irene could have been far worse. She unfortunately brought death and devastation. Let’s be thankful that we were prepared as best we could be and that next time we will have lived through this (some didn’t) and that we will know more of what to expect.


UPDATE: someone sent me this link. A visual representation of what we went through.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/08/hurricane-irene/100138/

[This photo comes from the NASA website, unaltered, to show you the size of storm we encountered. You know, the one people keep dismissing.]