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.
I think the accusations that the media overhyped Irene are themselves overhyped.
My take comes from the perspective of 2001 T.S. Allison that cleaned Houston’s clock. This storm swung south of Houston, stalled, then doubled back and sat over Houston for a day where it dropped 12 to 40 inches of rain in a day. The bayous backed up and flooded the underground tunnels and machine rooms of the downtown and Medical Center skyscrapers. 70,000 homes flooded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Allison
Now we fast forward to Irene where the models are in great agreement that Irene will approach NYC Sunday morning during a high spring tide. The stakes were quite high. As I told a fried on Friday, “If they keep the water out of the NY underground, it will be all over inside of 48 hours. But, if salt water gets into the subways and high rise basement, it won’t be over in 48 days.
From a different perspective, Irene was not a Tropical storm that makes landfall and 50 miles of shoreline are hurt. Irene was the worst kind of storm making dozens of “landfalls” along 400 miles of coastline, never quite leaving its food supply, but making life messy for millions.
Finally, if you still think it was overhyped… who held the gun to your head so that you kept watching it?
Holden Magroin says:
August 29, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I for one am glad it didn’t quite live up to the hype.I
The only ones sorry it didn’t are the anti-carbon cultists. They need more and bigger disasters to try to hang their CAGW/CC religion on.
The issue here is the credibility of the forecasters, which has been damaged by this, and that could have serious consequences next time an actual cat 3 or higher hits.
Stephen Rasey says:
” if you still think it was overhyped… who held the gun to your head so that you kept watching it?”
How the hell could you avoid it?? Every TV channel, every radio station, all over the internet, every newspaper reported Irene 24/7. That’s pretty much the definition of overhyping.
Stephen Rasey says:
August 29, 2011 at 6:24 pm
——————————
Depends on your perspective, I guess. With my best friend living in central Jersey, I’m with Stephen on this.
I was hanging on the news reports. Her power was out – no TV, no CNN, no nothing. Texts and calls were her only outside communication with what was going on.
I didn’t give a sh!t about Libya, or Manchester United scoring 8 against Arsenal.
Maybe if it was less hyped, the death toll could be higher?
4th deadliest storm in 30 years — and the potential to be far worse.
It certainly was over hyped here in the Australians MSM, who are now back pedalling like there is no tomorrow and sweeping the whole event under the carpet. No shame!
I would image that the reporter who stood in that sea foam of raw sewage would have something to say about the story being overhyped … except that he’s probably still gargling to get the taste out of his mouth while he’s taking yet another hot shower.
The element of the storm I heard about least, until the storm was winding down, was the potential for flooding. Now that the storm is history, the dangers from flooding are still increasing. Lives can still be lost.
I have officially given up listening to the mass media on weather related events. When the Dalton Minimum starts and it is snowmaggeddon in Los Angeles, then I may pay attention to the mass media. The ocean temperatures are not warm enough for hurricanes to maintain their strength over the East coast of the US. I am sure the quiet sun may also be a factor in the low number of hurricanes this year.
Nature seemed like it had its own fun with these reporters however …
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8291293/hurricane-reporter-slammed-with-raw-sewerage
Irene was a storm and obviously caused plenty of grief for many people but it wasn’t an epic disaster. The media loves to hype and create drama but exaggerating the risks is not helpful. I remember reading the account of a German couple who decided to not evacuate during Andrew. They said they knew what an “Orkan” was like and they’d be fine. Well, a German “Orkan” is quite a step milder than hurricane Andrew was and although they survived, they said they’d never not evacuate again. We need to have good information to make good choices about preparation. Over the top panic stories for a weakened storm will only cause more problems in the future when a serious storm hits.
Irene wasn’t hyped. But there were some pretty amusing “hypes” among the news crews that had to get up close a personal with Little Old Irene. But what can you do? People are human and you can’t take that away from them, usually.
Time to move on and get ready for the next wave. There always seems to be something else new in the news, doesn’t there? Wonder why?
Yesterdays headline in CNN Live here in Germany:
“Hurricane / Hype”
lol
Did TV overhype Irene? Of course they did. That’s what they do. IMHO, anyone who gets their news from TV is virtually guaranteed to be spectacularly misinformed on a wide variety of subjects. TVs almost always come with an on/off switch, and I’d suggest that it should be used when the news comes on. The print media is somewhat better.
=====
IMO those who criticize Bloomberg for his handling of the situation really are mostly demonstrating themselves to be mindless dolts. The storm could easily have been significantly stronger with the loss of tens or hundreds or thousands of lives and the problem of extracting passengers and trains from a flooded subway system had Bloomberg not shut things down. Furthermore, Bloomberg had the good grace to treat New Yorkers like intelligent adults who were going to make their own decisions.
=====
Finally, the storm turned out to be much worse than expected in Vermont. National TV did its usual mediocre job of reporting, but the destruction really is widespread and serious. A lot of roads are washed out, bridges gone, some towns are cut off, some houses gone, others damaged, a number of downtowns were flooded including those of several fairly substantial towns, lots of folks without power. There were fatalities. If you are curious check the homepage of the Burlington Free Press ( http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com)
Growing up where 70 mph windstorms were not an uncommon event (and where I have gone without power for 10 days at one point), the pictures of devastation around are not that surprising to me. I’ve gone through it before, several times. Even had a tree graze our house. Even had a tree knock out power for three days just last weekend from a mild wind storm. The danger is not a shock.
I think why it’s so sensationalized is people on the east coast aren’t used to such events at such a scale. So it’s raw and dramatic. I’ve also been through a 6.9 earthquake (that was wild) and a 5.4. Thus a 5.8 really sensationalized the eastern seaboard again due to its rarity. Don’t get such national news reaction to events up in Washington State! Why? Because we’re used to it, we deal with it, it’s a known quantity of life. Not so much for the east.
Down on the corner, out in the street,
Willy’s getin windblown and newboy’s got wet feet,
If you want the ratings, lay your money down,
Do it on the corner and all around the town.
Please excuse me, CCR.
The reason why FOX went to 24 hour coverage are clear and have a lot more to do with politics than the weather. I expect they were hoping to help Irene do to Obama what Katrina did to Bush.