Irene: Overhyped by the media?

[BRNout]

BRNout.... there is another wrinkle to grand-stand quarterbacking network coverage of news in general and the hurricane in particular. Nit-picking over how many people live in the "Eastern Corridor" is NOT the total way to analyze the choice of coverage.

How many people living in Mulberry, AR or Lincoln, KS or Moultrie, GA have a son or daughter who graduated from college two years ago, got married and now lives in New Jersey or maybe have a family member stationed at Norfolk, VA in Navy.

I really hate it when on a national broadcast they mention that tornadoes roared through the Ozarks today and seven people died in some small stinkin-butt town in Arkansas, but they don't name the town! People live in Seattle and Bangor and Atlanta and Chicago that have roots and/or family in out-of-the-way dinky little parts of Americana. If the story is worth covering, name the place! ( I know. Go to the Internet. But in the helter-skelter chaos of a tornado or tornado, it may be two or three days before the detail hits the web. Like... when next week's once-a-week local paper is published and is picked up on the web.)

Interest in news made in one location IS OF INTEREST to some people living in other parts of the nation... even other parts of the world.

Valid points, GRC - however, those needs can be met without all of the national news channels/programs going wall to wall with "end of the world" hype. So much of this coverage is so unnecessary. Do we all need to see every City of New York press conference? Absolutely not. Yet, CNN, FNC, MSNBC, etc. drop everything to carry those live. As if we're all New Yorkers. We are not and it's a waste of our time. Seeing a seemingly-drunk Mayor Bloomberg slaughter the Spanish language on a Saturday night isn't national news.

Meanwhile, Libya, unemployment and the national debt haven't gone away.

 

[vibe]

Not overhyped; you still had idiots trying to drive through 3 and 4 ft "puddles" and then calling for help. Others had trees fall on their cars while driving.
With less coverage/hype, there would be MORE damage/injuries/deaths....

 

[TheRob]

My biggest issue was the "storm of a lifetime" statements from the Weather Channel and various public officials, who seemed to lose all common sense when preparing people for the hurricane. When I think "storm of a lifetime," I think Hurricane Camille, or Andrew, or Mitch, or Katrina and Rita. Anyone with a basic knowledge of hurricanes knew Irene would lose strength after crossing North Carolina and transform into a heavy rain event. Meanwhile, the state experiencing the worst flooding (Vermont) wasn't mentioned at all in the "storm of a lifetime" predictions from the national media. 7.4 million customers lost power-- that tends to happen when the wind reaches 50 mph and most of your power lines are above ground. A regular thunderstorm knocked out power around here for four days earlier this month.

 

[radiolives]

Overhyped not at all. This is the east coast of the United States, the most populated part of the U.S. And with the storm going to hit the #1 city New York City. Sure the storm wasn't as powerful as they were saying. But the storm did dump a lot of rain and knocked down trees and power is still out to people who got hit by Irene. Some people will always say certain things are overhyped. On the radio the other day someone called and said coverage of Hurricane Irene was overhyped on The Weather Channel. The caller was from OK saying how TWC never says another about how dry and little rain Oklamoma gets. Saying how our lakes are drying up etc. But what do people care about more drying up lakes in OK or the east coast getting hit by a hurricane?

 

[BRNout]

Sure the storm wasn't as powerful as they were saying.

And, with this sentence, you just made my case for me. No, it wasn't as powerful as they were saying. Not nearly. Not even close. They hyped it up to be Katrina II and, in the end, it was not even as damaging as a decent-sized nor'easter. Over hyped.

But the storm did dump a lot of rain and knocked down trees and power is still out to people who got hit by Irene.

There are severe storms that hit portions of the country on a weekly basis which do all of these things. The Midwest has been hit by such mesoscale cyclonic systems three or four times this year. In one storm last month, the Chicago area alone had 950,000 customers without electricity. Many were out for as long as a week. Didn't see Anderson Cooper doing a stand up in our local area. Didn't see the storms (which hit other Midwestern states as well) characterized as a "once in a lifetime" event. Because, much like Irene, it wasn't. Our local news covered it like a blanket. And that's who is best at covering Irene too. That which you describe happens every year.

The fact that the East Coast is 'the most populated part of the U.S.' (actually, most densely populated is more accurate) isn't it. California's disasters don't merit nearly the coverage that we saw here - and those impact a state with a population of greater than 35 million people. Yet they (fires, floods, earthquakes) are ofter far more devastating. How about the droughts and fires in Texas (a state with two top-10 markets)? Almost totally ignored, save for the Weather Channel. Yet if someone sneezes in Manhattan, it's BREAKING NEWS.

Not overhyped; you still had idiots trying to drive through 3 and 4 ft "puddles" and then calling for help. Others had trees fall on their cars while driving.
With less coverage/hype, there would be MORE damage/injuries/deaths....

So vibe, idiots aren't going to drive through 3 and 4 foot puddles if CNN/FNC/MSNBC, etc go wall to wall? Clearly that's not so. One guy in CT went down a flooded river in a canoe with his buddy, posing for pictures on the way. They found his body washed up a little ways downstream. All that hype didn't stop him. In fact, I think it emboldens some people.

In the end, I cannot disagree more with your comment about there being "MORE" injuries/damage/deaths. On the contrary, this crap COSTS lives. How? Because one of these years, a real storm will threaten these areas. The media and local pols will jump up and down and people won't believe them. After all, you can cry wolf only so many times before you are ignored. People are becoming increasingly cynical and with good reason.

 

[radiolives]

The fact that the East Coast is 'the most populated part of the U.S.' (actually, most densely populated is more accurate) isn't it. California's disasters don't merit nearly the coverage that we saw here - and those impact a state with a population of greater than 35 million people. Yet they (fires, floods, earthquakes) are ofter far more devastating. How about the droughts and fires in Texas (a state with two top-10 markets)? Almost totally ignored, save for the Weather Channel. Yet if someone sneezes in Manhattan, it's BREAKING NEWS.

Just today The Weather Channel was talking about how high the temps have been in Texas. Been over 100 for some time now. And saying how one day this week the high will only be 92 with rain as Texas hasn't seen a 92 temp in a good while.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Sure the storm wasn't as powerful as they were saying.

And, with this sentence, you just made my case for me. No, it wasn't as powerful as they were saying. Not nearly. Not even close. They hyped it up to be Katrina II and, in the end, it was not even as damaging as a decent-sized nor'easter. Over hyped.

The expected path of the storm shown on television had that cone-shaped projection. It went more to the left than the center of the projection cone path. Being over land drained the storm of energy, thus lower winds. If the storm had gone slightly to the right side of the cone it would have had more of the storm over water, maybe totally over water up past the carolinas. Hurricanes retain their strength, gain strength when traveling over water.... gain strength like CRAZY over warm water. If that storm had stayed on the right edge of the projected path, if that storm had its center still over water as it neared NYC, we wouldn't be having this conversation this morning. We might be having a conversation about why the media didn't do a better job warning people.

Back to the question of why do the stupid media subject us ALL to information useful only to the people living in the northeaster corridor?

Some day a few years down the line when I come home some evening and find my local media warning me about the hurricane headed my way, how do I know how to process the truckload of information being dumped on me. If I watch the coverage of other events in other parts of the country and see how reality differs from what the media told me up front (some storms turn out meaner than predicted, some storms turn out to be little ***** cats) then I have some "collected wisdom" to decide when to pack the wife and kids in the car and run-like-hell (Boys and Girls, can you say "Katrina"?) and when to grab some plywood and flash light batteries and just enjoy the event.

If I never watch other peolples weather in progress, then I become one of Quadraphonics neighbors living in a 3 foot wide cardboard box. Rumor has it those boxes don't work well in either hurricanes or tornados. ;D

 

[vchimpanzee]

You NEVER want to UNDER report the weather... lead people to believe it is going to be weak, going to be mild... and then have it turn out to be the meanest, ugliest storm to ever hit.

A good example: Hugo in 1989. Charlotte was most concerned about flooding, but the meteorologist I was listening to warned that sustained winds would be around 40-50 MPH. He made a point of mentioning that's different from 40-50 MPH wind gusts.

Instead, the rain wasn't so bad. What Charlotte got was 65 MPH sustained winds and (officially) gusts of 89, with some gusts believed to be over 100. It was one of the worst disasters ever in that city. Power was off for two weeks in some places.

I was surprised when I saw a map 20 years later showing how bad the wind was. I thought it was bad where I lived, and I was lucky in that I live on Duke Power's main line, so my power was off less than 24 hours. It was actually around 45 MPH sustained.

 

[BRNout]

Sure the storm wasn't as powerful as they were saying.

And, with this sentence, you just made my case for me. No, it wasn't as powerful as they were saying. Not nearly. Not even close. They hyped it up to be Katrina II and, in the end, it was not even as damaging as a decent-sized nor'easter. Over hyped.

The expected path of the storm shown on television had that cone-shaped projection. It went more to the left than the center of the projection cone path. Being over land drained the storm of energy, thus lower winds. If the storm had gone slightly to the right side of the cone it would have had more of the storm over water, maybe totally over water up past the carolinas. Hurricanes retain their strength, gain strength when traveling over water.... gain strength like CRAZY over warm water. If that storm had stayed on the right edge of the projected path, if that storm had its center still over water as it neared NYC, we wouldn't be having this conversation this morning. We might be having a conversation about why the media didn't do a better job warning people.

Back to the question of why do the stupid media subject us ALL to information useful only to the people living in the northeaster corridor?

Some day a few years down the line when I come home some evening and find my local media warning me about the hurricane headed my way, how do I know how to process the truckload of information being dumped on me. If I watch the coverage of other events in other parts of the country and see how reality differs from what the media told me up front (some storms turn out meaner than predicted, some storms turn out to be little ------ cats) then I have some "collected wisdom" to decide when to pack the wife and kids in the car and run-like-hell (Boys and Girls, can you say "Katrina"?) and when to grab some plywood and flash light batteries and just enjoy the event.

If I never watch other peolples weather in progress, then I become one of Quadraphonics neighbors living in a 3 foot wide cardboard box. Rumor has it those boxes don't work well in either hurricanes or tornados. ;D

Okay, you make two points that I think deserve a response.

1) About the path of the hurricane: yes and (mostly) no to your comment.

You correctly point out that the cone of the hurricane allowed for a variation in outcomes. However, where you are mistaken has to do with climatology. This was where most of the forecasters fell down on the job. You see, the projected path (which they DID get right) tended to cut off too much moisture from the storm as it always would. And, water temperatures off the coasts of DE, NJ or NY - though warmer than usual this year - are waaay too cool to power 1/2 of a hurricane. The minimum water temp needed to do that would be 80 F - higher is better as the eye was along the coastline. Had the storm veered eastward into the water, it would have maintained a little more strength (cat 1-2), but also missed that supposed hit on NYC. Yes, eastern Long Island, Rhode Island and the Cape and Islands would have taken a punch; but there's nothing unusual about that.

Had the storm veered to the left (west) a bit more, it would have lost even more wind strength, again allowing the drama that the media hyped to die a slow death. No matter what the storm did, it - like most tropical storms - had a lot of moisture and was going to dump a lot of rain. But, again, this is not without precedent. Rather than concentrating their efforts in Battery Park and on Mid Atlantic boardwalks, the real public service would have been done in upstate NY, eastern PA and Vermont. And that would have been the case no matter which side of the "cone" the storm hit. This is because of topography AND the fact that these areas were already rain soaked. Of course, that wasn't going to happen because most of our media are myopic and - ultimately - provincial. They live in New York and have a Manhattanite's view of the world. By the way, you'll notice that the flood conditions weren't as bad farther east - that's because NH and ME have had less rain in the past month. We knew that beforehand too.

This was NEVER going to be Katrina. Not ever. It's simply too difficult to line all the physics up for that to happen so far north and into such hilly areas. The prevailing winds ALWAYS grab these storms and speed them up. The cooler waters temper their strength - unless they stay far enough east to tap into the Gulf Stream (hitting Nantucket) - and the hills of the interior northeast break them up. Not to mention all the dry air being funneled in from the Midwest which killed off the southern half of the storm once it hit New Jersey.

A few competent meteorologists tried to point these things out, but were drowned out (no pun intended) by the others who were going after this "big" story. People who were flooded out tended to live in areas prone to flooding. Again, dramatic pictures were obtained, but I've seen the same in Vermont (for example) during a big March rainstorm. Any meteorologist worth his salt would have told you that Irene wasn't going to be the disaster of the century. Getting it right is very important, you know. And no, they did NOT get this right.

As for your comment about the "3 foot box", that's a convenient exaggeration in order to make a point. In my case, it fails miserably. You're just taking the anti-hype comments to an extreme end and - as is usually the case - that ends up being incorrect. I watch the news to see what happens around the world. And, with tons of family and friends in New England, I was very interested in this story.

But the hype was shameless. And the 24/7 news coverage was (way) over the top. Nor did I need to have multiple channels covering every damn New York Municipal press conference. One could tell that this was of primary interest to the people who work at the aforementioned news channels because they live there. Whether it mattered to people elsewhere - or added one thing to the coverage - was clearly not taken into account.

One last point about the "box": Houston has gotten more than one big hurricane over the past decade and I also have interests there. One such example (Rita) resulted in friends and colleagues being forced to evacuate along with millions of others. We saw news coverage on this but NOT the sort of 24/7, incessant, drop-everything, sky's-the-limit obsession that Irene enjoyed. At times, I searched hard for updates.

So no, your comment is not valid in my case. I do want to see news from other places, but commiserate with the level of the event. And news that is relevant. We didn't need to drop Libya and every other world story for this. But it was fun to see the reporters pretending to weather this "horrible" storm in New York while passers-by frolicked in the background. What a joke.....

 

[firepoint525]

Here in Nashville, we got a once-in-a-thousand-years flood event last year. My home is was (officially) NOT in the flood plain, yet two feet of water were in my home. 15 months later, I, and many others, are STILL recovering from this devastating flood. How many of you in the rest of the country were even aware that we were flooded? Yes, a heavy rain event was predicted, but we ended up receiving about TWICE as much rain as was predicted. We get so many tornadoes around here that I figured that one of them would eventually hit my house, but I never thought that I would live to see a flood of such epic proportions.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Here in Nashville, we got a once-in-a-thousand-years flood event last year. My home is was (officially) NOT in the flood plain, yet two feet of water were in my home. 15 months later, I, and many others, are STILL recovering from this devastating flood. How many of you in the rest of the country were even aware that we were flooded? Yes, a heavy rain event was predicted, but we ended up receiving about TWICE as much rain as was predicted. We get so many tornadoes around here that I figured that one of them would eventually hit my house, but I never thought that I would live to see a flood of such epic proportions.

I knew, bcause there was damage to country music's landmarks. I suppose that's not as important as all the people who were hurt so much more. It still hurts to see these places and possibly relics of country music damaged or destroyed.

 

[imhomerjay]

And much as children often selectively remember events, modify details thereof, or outright invent supposed slights in the name of validating a bogus "mom likes you best" self pity party, we have the usual litany of contrived silliness here, pretending coverage of weather disasters elsewhere doesn't happen.

 

[searadiofreak]

Coverage of major natural disasters is heavily biased by two things. Where the media is located, and recent history. One reason why "Irene" was covered so greatly is because Katrina is still fresh in our minds. Toss a coin, and most cable nets will come down on over-covering the event, as opposed to under-covering the event with the chance it will be another Katrina. Pure and simple, an odds game. The other part of this is most cable media today is heavily concentrated in NY and DC, even Atlanta's CNN has a big presence in both cities. There is a self-important element here, (yes, based on population as well), and dare I use the word elitism that comes into play. If it happens here it is important, if it happens in North Carolina, Louisiana, Seattle, or even L.A., less so. Nobody is to blame, it is just a prevelant attitude that exists within the media centers of the Northeast. Heck, look at Vermont. Hardly mentioned until today, but this is where most of the damage occured.

The answer? None, really. As long as media continue to knee-jerk due to recent history, and as long as media continue to insist "they" are in the only area that really matters, nothing will change.

 

[flytrap]

I've seen New York make national news when the power goes out for a few hours. I remember once seeing a national news story from New York because the blackberries weren't working. One thing about the news media. The love a story with lots of conflict, irony and human suffering. When Katrina hit the MISSSISSIPPI Gulf coast, most of the coverage was about the flooding in New Orleans. Because they had the distressed screaming people, floating bodies, looting etc. On the Mississippi coast there was total destruction, but fewer people and less chaos. Most people had already left. In the Nashville flood it was the same way. Less panic and chaos. And in TV news. No pictures=no story.

 

[BRNout]

Flytrap and searadiofreak get it. HomerJ, not so much.....

 

[nocomradio]

I for one don't like the "end of the world" scenarios that the media plays out. It really serves no purpose other than fear-mongering and ratings boosting.

However, I am a person who lives squarely in hurricane alley that does like as much information as I can get. Local stations, if there were any left, have failed in that respect and as such, we are all subject to large media outlets like CNN, TWC, FOX and others who really have no interests in mind other than the bottom line. As such, whatever makes a sensational story with lots of spooky music, and minute by minute reports of death, mayhem and destruction (real or invented) will take precedent.

When news is slow (read: nothing exploding in our backyard) then you will find the reporters wherever they can find some tidbit to blow out of proportion. On that note though, I do recall pretty decent coverage of the wildfires around Los Alamos NM, and the freaky weather in and around the Pacific Northwest. Not minute by minute coverage, but coverage that seemed to me to be adequate. Here in the East, over-coverage of some news items is a problem without a doubt. I also blame the American public though, who does love a good drama. If we didn't turn it on, they wouldn't have an audience.

 

[formeraa]

Jim Cantore made an accurate statement on the Today show. He said, "We did well at forecasting the track of Irene. However, forecasting the intensity of hurricanes is much more difficult." That said, having been in an equally disappointing Hurricane Gloria in 1985, it is definitely better to be safe than sorry. Weather forecasting is not perfect. Just think if the media had downplayed it, Irene had grown stronger, and hundreds of people had been killed. Then, we would be having a different discussion here.

 

[hubcity]

Jim Cantore made an accurate statement on the Today show. He said, "We did well at forecasting the track of Irene. However, forecasting the intensity of hurricanes is much more difficult." That said, having been in an equally disappointing Hurricane Gloria in 1985, it is definitely better to be safe than sorry. Weather forecasting is not perfect. Just think if the media had downplayed it, Irene had grown stronger, and hundreds of people had been killed. Then, we would be having a different discussion here.

I'm in day 3 of the blackout caused by this "dissappointing" hurricane. Kinda missing everything that used to be in my fridge.

/you mean there's higher categories? We'll all be living in caves.

 

[Bob1370]

Depends on where you were.

Down in the Carolinas it was no joke, and hit the coastal areas hard with a lot of damage and loss of life. Ask someone down there and they'll tell you it lived up to their fears.

The hype kicked in bigtime as Irene headed up the coast toward New York City, where the reaction of both media and government led people to expect doom. What they got was a bad rainstorm, inconvenience, power outages and some flooding as you headed up the Hudson Valley--but on balance nothing worse than the result of a bad blizzard of the kind you get every few years in the Northeast. It wasn't the second coming of Katrina by any means.

 

[bpatrick]

I live in the Carolinas, and believe me, the Raleigh and Greensboro
stations had difficulty tracking both the path and the intensity of
the storm. At first the storm was supposed to make landfall in the
Wilmington area, then the Outer Banks, and when it did make landfall,
it was in the central-coastal area around Morehead City. Also, there
were times when the forecasters thought it might get up to a Category
4 before dropping back to a 3 or a 2. But even a category 1 is bad enough,
if anybody saw Mike Seidel trying to maneuver in it or saw the collapse of the
pier at Atlantic Beach, NC. Needless to say, we don't take these things lightly.

Slightly off-topic, but there's an analogy to what some of you have said about
New York ignoring events in the rest of the country: if you watch ESPN enough,
you begin to get the feeling that there are only three teams in the major leagues:
the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox, something I think is related to ESPN's headquarters
in Bristol, CT. Point: if it hasn't happened in New York, it hasn't happened seems to
be the media's point of view. But believe me, this hurricane could have been a lot
worse; those who experienced Hugo, Fran, or Katrina know what I mean.