Hurricane Irene to threaten Northeast

Well I guess after seeing the massive destruction and loss of precious life in Up State NY and Vermont I need to retract my gripe about over reporting of severe weather.  Perhaps a more accurate complaint was that it appears that too much attention was given to NYC and not enough to the rural areas further north.

For clarity, both moms live in highly populated, secure areas with backup generator power. They were never in any sort of danger as long as they stayed inside and waited for the storm to pass.  If either mom lived in rural VT I would have been very worried about them.

BigDogMom wrote

Well I guess after seeing the massive destruction and loss of precious life in Up State NY and Vermont I need to retract my gripe about over reporting of severe weather.  Perhaps a more accurate complaint was that it appears that too much attention was given to NYC and not enough to the rural areas further north.

For clarity, both moms live in highly populated, secure areas with backup generator power. They were never in any sort of danger as long as they stayed inside and waited for the storm to pass.  If either mom lived in rural VT I would have been very worried about them.

For the record IMO your original point has some merit.  For the news media, creating fear is part of their revenue model.  If the media wanted to be helpful, they would help push out the dispassionate information that National Weather Service and other gov't agencies provide.  Who is in low lying areas, and need to evacuate?  Pictures of Joe the reporter stand in waders, holding onto a pole against TS force winds aren't helpful.

That said, it's capitalism. It sells because we watch it.

Harvey44 wrote

Pictures of Joe the reporter stand in waders, holding onto a pole against TS force winds aren't helpful.

That's exactly the kind of thing I meant when I talked about some of the footage being "staged". Not to minimize the REAL effects of these storms, but I remember during Katrina watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. They showed him in thigh deep water with howling winds and driving rain. As they cut away to go back to the studio, the cameraman swung the camera around to the side and you could see that the ground where HE was standing was completely dry!

Face4Me wrote

As we found out, and probably everyone has heard since, the Thruway was closed from Albany down to the Tappan Zee Bridge. We tried to go through Northern NJ via Route 17 and were turned back due to flooding. Then, we tried via 9W and made it as far as Newburgh, NY before we were turned back. Some of the flooding we saw was absolutely unbelievable. Route 9W was really ripped up and washed out in a lot of spots.

My troubles from this storm are trivial compared to others. We lost power at the Franklin Lakes, NJ house in the afternoon, so I decided to go back to Saratoga around 6:30PM Sun. I had no idea that the Thruway was closed. So six hours later and 70 miles extra I arrived at my destination, via closed Thruway south, Pal Pkwy No. to Bear Mtn Bridge. Taconic Pkwy, and I-90/Berkshire Connector closed so detour up 82 and 22 finally to Rte 7 through Troy to 87. Access to Campgaw Mtn and Tuxedo Ridge affected also:

Given all the problems in the Adirondacks, I'm glad we decided to turn back and return home instead of continuing to try to find a way North!

I have to admit I am humbled by the effects of a Tropical Storm..The damage was far more than I thought. Even though there was no real structural damage. Trees and flooding caused terrible   problems..

Still the Media did a horrible job warning the public without creating panic..

Imagine the damage if a real hurricane pounded the area

This is for BDM.....

http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr/9009/49844496/Did_media_go_overboard_hyping_Hurricane_Irene

I gather Gore had no damage, eh Harv?

Face4Me wrote

Harvey44 wrote

Pictures of Joe the reporter stand in waders, holding onto a pole against TS force winds aren't helpful.

That's exactly the kind of thing I meant when I talked about some of the footage being "staged". Not to minimize the REAL effects of these storms, but I remember during Katrina watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. They showed him in thigh deep water with howling winds and driving rain. As they cut away to go back to the studio, the cameraman swung the camera around to the side and you could see that the ground where HE was standing was completely dry!

IMO there's a bigger issue than the basic lack of journalistic integrity evident in this.  You are modeling behavior. Anderson Cooper went out in a hurricane. Let's do that too.  Come on. What's next ... some DWI for the camera? Would be great for ratings.

Heard from Mike this morning. No major issues at Gore. Tellingly no response from Bruce, and only a text from Laszlo.  Although I think Laz would text on his way down in an airplane crash.

I guess the good news, is that with the availability of social networking sites, cellular communications, etc., it's now possible to get real-time eyewitness reports during emergencies without the sensationalism that seems to always accompany news media reports.

Unrelated to Irene, I was watching CNN the other day and they were reporting on the events occurring in Libya. They went to a reporter who was providing an "unprecedented" view of the underground bunkers and tunnel complexes that Gaddafi had built. The reporter made a point, on multiple occasions, of pointing out how much money had been spent building these complexes instead of being spent on the Libyan people. I couldn't help but wonder, how much money the U.S. government has spent on underground bunkers and complexes to house the President and members of Congress in the event of some kind of attack. It seems to me that most nations have these kinds of "hardened" facilities to protect their leaders. In this case, however, the reporter tried to make it seem as though the Libyan situation was unique.

They just have to make everything a more sensational than it may actually be ... does anyone remember Geraldo Rivera's live telecast where they opened Al Capone's vault!!! :)

Face4Me wrote

I guess the good news, is that with the availability of social networking sites, cellular communications, etc.,

I forgot to mention my trip upstate the evening following the hurricane was made possible by my dear spouse at home speaking to me on the car's onboard hands free cell directing me from the 511ny.org website.  "Michael, all the roads have red Xs on them!"

Nice!

Irene's second landfall: