There’s a newsgroup that just about everyone who’s in the television news reads daily called “Shoptalk” which is as old as the Internet. They have a host website called TVspy. Today they asked their own readers this question:
Was Hurricane Irene Overhyped?
By Andrew Gauthier on August 29, 2011 11:58 AM
Hurricane Irene dominated the airwaves over the weekend as many stations along the East Coast provided wall-to-wall coverage of the storm as it moved through the area. Since the hurricane proved to be less catastrophic than many had anticipated, we want to know what you think about how local stations handled the storm–leave your thoughts in the poll below…
=============================================================
In the Telegraph, they sure seem to think so, this from today’s newspaper:
Perfect Storm Of Hype:
The Hurricane Irene Apocalypse That Never Was
Toby Harnden, The Daily Telegraph, 28 August 2011
The images summed up Hurricane Irene – the media and the United States federal government trying to live up to their own doom-laden warnings and predictions while a sizeable number of ordinary Americans just carried on as normal and even made gentle fun of all the fuss. The truth is that the dire warning beforehand suited both politicians and journalists. Irene became a huge story because it was where the media lived. For politicians, Irene was a chance to either make amends or appear in control. The White House sent out 25 Irene emails to the press on Saturday alone.
My thoughts on the Irene event are here. You can take the poll yourself at the TVspy website here, since the poll is open for anyone to participate.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If you want to read about real cyclonic stroms, Google “Columbus Day Storm” (1962) and “Typhoon Freda.”
For example, of the 4,000 homes within the city limits of Lake Oswego, OR. 70% were damaged in the 1962 storm. Hundreds of thousands of acres of fully stocked forest lands, much of it old growth, suffered severe blow-down that was estimated to be 15 billion board feet of standing trees in northern CA, OR and WA. Wind speeds reached 145mph on the OR coast.
These sub-tropical typhoons are fairly common in the fall-winter season in the Pacific NW irrespective of CO2 emissions. We get a big one every decade or so on average.
I get PO’d when the Druids, that seem to predominate in the news media along the eastern seaboard, whine and pollute the airways with 24 hour coverage of their severe weather. Severe weather occurs all over the globe. And it is part of natural climate variability rather than an exception to it.
I have a suggestion regarding avoidance of power outages. Inventory and remove all “danger” trees that threaten power lines if they topple. We do this in the Puget Sound Basin where I reside. Another choice is to put your utility wires underground. I know it is difficult for Druids to cut down a single tree. If you won’t, shut up and live with your power outages.
No one has the absolute right to build and rebuild in danger zones such as flood zones and ocean fronts that are periodically exposed to hurricane damage. Why should taxpayers subsidize repeated rebuilding through mandatory public flood insurance that is recklessly under priced and mismanaged by the federal government?
Some European says:
August 29, 2011 at 11:22 am
“Hey, I’m an AGW catastrophist and I agree that Irene was overhyped. The question is: by whom? By scientists or by the media?”
Condolences, this worked out badly for your side. Romm and McKibben had already announced the megadisaster, amplified by CO2, and now this. And, well, yes, it was your media that overhyped it – remember, they have been on the warmist side for a decade or longer now.
Here you go, Anthony. No mention of “goofy liveshots.” Here’s a reader who feels that the “overhype” was due to statements and/or projections about the likely severity of the storm. There are many other, similar comments.
Where is there evidence of statements or projections being made that weren’t appropriately qualified? Where were “the media” making statements that mislead in terms of the precision of their forecasts? That would be the definition of “overhyping,” as I see it, not “goofy liveshots.” Provide us with some of those and maybe your argument would hold up. Complaining about reporters in raincoats doesn’t quite meet the bar, IMO.
REPLY: Scroll up, watch the video. Defend that sort of stupidity, go ahead, make my day. – Anthony
So Anthony, what is your argument about the damage caused by that liveshot? What harm was caused by that “overhyping?” Did people evacuate because they watched that clip? Did NY stop running the subways because they watched that clip? Are you upset because a reporter’s life was put in danger? What is the actual nature of your objection? You know, something deeper than the analysis that the clip was “goofy.”
REPLY: Joshua, your threadjack is over. All further posts go to the troll bin – Anthony
snip – don’t feed the troll – Anthony
This hurricane was taking aim at the most populated section of this country, and though storms are a threat every year on the east coast, this one had the potential to have an impact (and did to one degree or another) on nearly every population center here. Media coverage of such an event is important to inform residents of impending danger so that they can protect their own lives and property. If the media’s job is to inform, they went completely over the top.
Personally I have a general disdain for the MSM as their integrity continues to decline proportionally to the amount of hyperbole they propagate. I believe the reason they do this is because the news is no longer about information as much as it is about entertainment. There are so many sources of information available now that perhaps they fear they are losing relevance. In any case, it seems there was absolutely nothing else going on anywhere in the last 5 days. The president was on vacation and the state department approved the Keystone pipeline on Friday (truly nothing at all for those in the media).The hurricane was the only thing happening, and the MSM milked that one completely dry.
“REPLY: Scrubbed would imply removal. Correction is changing words/spelling. Now if you have something to discuss about TV media, then discuss it, otherwise take a hike. I get tired of your thread jackings here. Note the policy page. Note there I state WUWT has a low tolerance level for people using taxpayer funded resources to spout snark from the comfort of anonymity. – Anthony”
You are being far too kind. Ban him/her/it.
Not just in the U.S was there hype,the BBC had coverage on its 24hr news channel for what seemed like all day sunday,even had Bloombergs press release live!
and today they are still still giving a fair bit of coverage,though you can almost feel the disappointment that it was not as bad as predicted.
For a basically unpredictable event like this, more scare is better than less scare.
I thought the index-card business was an especially good way to scare one specific group. Who are the hardest to evacuate? Older women. And who still has 3×5 index cards? Older women.
The only thing I’d call wrong is the failure to distinguish between tragic deaths and Darwin Awards. Half of the deaths were tragic: trees coming through the roof while a kid sleeps. Half were Darwin Awards: Surfers and drivers. If you go out in a car or sailboat or surfboard under these conditions, you need to die.
paddylol says:
August 29, 2011 at 12:30 pm
“I have a suggestion regarding avoidance of power outages. Inventory and remove all “danger” trees that threaten power lines if they topple. We do this in the Puget Sound Basin where I reside. Another choice is to put your utility wires underground. I know it is difficult for Druids to cut down a single tree. If you won’t, shut up and live with your power outages.”
Excellent post. Excellent advice. I was in Richmond when Isabel hit in 2005 or so. Richmond had not experienced a direct hit from a hurricane in decades. The streets were lined with trees that were at least 75 years old. Hurricane Isabel had sustained winds at 55 and gusts to 65. Half the trees came down. It was a spectacular sight as a tree would fall across the powerlines running down the median and bounce on them for several minutes. If the winds had reached 80, all the trees would have come down. And we had flooding. My sump pump burned up and my basement stood in three feet of water. Others suffered worse flooding. It took the power company about a week to restore power. This too was exciting, as twice they replaced the blown transformers, turned on the power, and heard the new transformers exploding one after another.
But folks, all of this is normal. That is what a mild hurricane does. I hope that it is obvious that what one needs to do when a hurricane is heading your way is to depart for another city.
Maybe what the news media needs to do is to post a brief statement, as above, describing what to expect from a mild hurricane.
I think the media, with the help of the NHC (National Hurricane Center) did over hype the wind threat from Irene. Not sure why National Hurricane Center keep it as a Cat 1 for as long as it did!
‘No regular weather station or buoy, however, has measured sustained hurricane force winds in Irene, with the highest winds being 67 mph at the Cape Lookout, North Carolina buoy.’
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene_(2011)
It makes it really hard to tell people to evacuate and how dangerous it is….
…when you have a news reporter, standing on some boardwalk, leaning sideways….
…and over her right shoulder, off in the distance, actually on the beach
there’s a woman walking her dog
When do we get the plague of locusts?
It was overhyped in that the doom bells kept ringing even after the max sustained winds dropped below hurricane strength. The MSM can’t seem to be able to back down from a position of hype. That’s a problem very familiar to readers of this blog.
However, as far as a tropical storm goes, it will be long remembered here in Vermont. My town (Fairfield) was spared the worst thanks to shadowing by Mount Mansfield which reduced the amount of rainfall by a rather decent amount. The southern part of the state got hammered.
I’m grateful of the coverage, especially here on WUWT, and since I never watch the talking heads TV news the overhype didn’t bother me a bit. My NPR weatherpeople (VPR) were calm, accurate, and very un-hyped.
(Note to Anthony, this didn’t post the first time so I am trying again. If it double posts instead, my sincere apologies)
The biggest problem was that the forecasters got the predicted strength so wrong. The media circus followed from there, as they made fools of themselves by trying to show things to be worse than they really were. Of course, there was still plenty of damage, and we actually had some very significant flooding here in parts of NH, with some places in and around the White Mts. receiving as much as a foot or more of rain.
The bottom line is that people will tend to take projections of the strength of future storms with a grain or two of salt, which could prove very costly or even deadly if the projections turn out to be true.
The hurricane-track coverage was great and pretty much spot on, but the shows I viewed stayed on the wind speeds far too long after Irene was obviously fizzling out.
I thought they were w-a-a-y slow switching over to the flooding aspects. And I noticed in comments upthread that some flooded places always flood, hurricane or no. Also, NY already had flood coverage from the Spring that looked worse than what Irene dumped on certain areas. The Northeast had a very wet – certainly newsworthy – Spring. Irene? Not so much after the winds died.
I for one am glad it didn’t quite live up to the hype. We lost power for over 12 hours (and feel lucky as some may not get it back until next weekend, we are told.) We were also told that the death toll is up to at least 20. Isn’t that bad enough? Many streets around me were either flooded or blocked by downed trees. Or both. And we got off relatively easily compared to many. Who would have thought that a Tropical Weather Event (hey, I should work for the Government!) would cause extreme flooding up in Vermont? This WAS a big storm. Hindsight is, of course, 20-20. Much of the coverage was over-the-top but I am glad it was there. They could have toned it down but also I should have been better prepared.
After all, there WILL be a next time.
My first hurricane was Donna (1960) and that one still holds some records I think. I have seen many since then and Charley went right over me in Orlando. That one followed the track of Donna — right up I-4.
These storms are not to be sneezed at, but there is a whale of a difference between a cat 3 or cat 4, and a cat 1 or tropical storm. It should have been obvious to professionals that the hurricane would rapidly lose strength as it went north; they do that. After landfall in NC as a barely cat 1 storm, the hype should have come down several notches.
It is OK to warn folks in advance that even weak storms are to be respected — but don’t pretend that a cat 1 is a cat 3.
We had a very similar situation here in North Queensland this year with TC Yasi, which admittedly was enormous in area and persisted for a long time, but was, and is still, claimed to be Cat 5 with 300kph winds, when James Cook University engineers estimated from ground damage that it was 220-240 kph, borderline Cat 3-Cat4 (as I estimated) – which is no comfort for victims in the firing line who lost everything. Howver, I agree that overhyping leads to overconfidence next time. Dangerous practice.
Yes, overhyped but typically so. Never mind though, over here we’re onto the next armageddon scenario now (thanks, BBC) – bird flu is back and it’s a lot meaner than before. IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT! We’ve got to stay afraid, otherwise we might start questioning our rulers’ motives and methods.
I knew this was the perfect storm of hype when it passed Myrtle Beach with less than an inch of rain. When it weakened on Friday I decided to visit a friend on an island in the Chesapeake 70 miles closer to the track because he is on high ground with drainage to the bay in two directions and a back-up generator. We laughed all weekend about how disappointed the media was that there wasn’t more drama. My decision was very good in retrospect because there was more rain, wind, tree damage, and power outages in Richmond than on the island.
They were evacuating the Gloucester hospital by helicopter all Friday and it never even lost power. I went shopping at Walmart during the “peak” of the storm on Saturday.
Bloomberg ordering evacuation and shutting down the transit was moronic and he should be shamed out of office for overreacting and using the power of government to override people’s own common sense to prepare and then wait to see if it is necessary.
Jaun (kick-started by Isabel?) was underhyped. Lots of finger-pointing in the aftermath.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/CTVNewsAt11/20030927/hurricane_ns_030927/
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2003juan.shtml
FEMA is almost out of money, maybe that had something to do with the overhype.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/29/news/economy/fema_funds_hurricane_irene/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn3
😉
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 29, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Best coverage evah!