yellowroom

Exactly what I've been thinking.

While in no way do I want to diminish the worry of those in the path of the storm, or the heartache and stress of those who have property damage, and the grief of the family and friends of those who died....

... it was hardly anything of the scale of, for example, the Japanese tsunami. It was some bad weather which highlighted some of the precarious nature of some coastal infrastructure. It did not justify, for example, my mum having a sleepless night glued to News 24 (despite me texting Dad telling him to pull the plug on the telly cos I was fine).

I get the public service information role, I get the telling people to be sensible, use common sense and prepare/get out of the way as applicable. I don't get the hysteria. But then one of my constant moans is the hysterical approach of the news here compared to the "keep calm and carry on" tones of the BBC.

The tone leaves nowhere to go should there be a really big phenomena in the future. Certainly round here there is a distinct anti-climax feeling - a lot of leaves down, but that's it.

Mind you, I asked today about our office risk assessments and business continuity plans in the event of emergency and I was met with blank stares like I was talking Swahili.....

N1cky

Tell that to the families of the 39 people who have been killed, without the warnings and all the "hype" the death toll could have been much higher.

Glad you had no more trouble than a few leaves, I can imagine how disappointed you must be not to have had a tree crash through the roof of your house.

yellowroom

I think you missed this bit of my post:
Get a grip. Communicating the danger and warnings is one thing, fully on board with that. Storm of the millenia? No.

The point of the "only a few leaves" thing is that next time there is a storm coming and the media hypes up again, a significant portion of the population are going to think "cry wolf" because nothing too bad happened round here despite the forecast *and pay no attention to the next warning*. The media hysteria is actually causing harm in the long run.

N1cky

So you would sooner have the reaction be like it was for Katrina? Where hardly any warnings were given out and hundreds of people died.

WEBlue

What some are calling that "tone" of hysteria, and all that "hype", was a simple attempt by the authorities to get people to evacuate areas that could be put in danger. It didn't completely work, because too many didn't evacuate dangerous areas in NJ, NYC, and CT. But the attempt was valid; indeed it would have been negligence on the part of the authorities not to have urged people to leave flood-prone areas in as strong a "tone" as possible.

If they had not used such strong language, many more may have died or been injured. IMO, it's because the authorities spoke out in superlatives that fatalities/injuries were relatively small.

yellowroom

IIRC there were plenty of warnings for Katrina - I knew about it days in advance and I was in the UK at the time!

The problem is the effectiveness of the warnings - many of the people didn't evacuate because they thought the authorities were making an unnecessary fuss - in some cases because there had been false alarms in the past and they thought this was another one.

Put it another way - how much harder did they NY authorities have to work to say "Yes we know we said this about Irene last year and nothing much happened, but this time we really really mean it".

The media needs another way of communicating that doesn't involve turning the hysteria knob up to 11.

WEBlue

Nothing much happened in Hurricane Irene? That seems a rather cynical statement. Tell that to my relatives in VT who had no functioning road & no electricity in their small VT town for 9 days and what they respond may perhaps change your mind.

Hurricane Sandy left millions without power (some of whom may not get it back till the weekend), transport, schooling, businesses to go to, etc. The damage assessments (and even the full death toll) are not yet finalized, but look to be significantly higher than Irene.
http://news.msn.com/us/hurricane-san...rse-than-irene

N1cky

Clearly there would have been no more fatalaties if all those people had gone to school, work, on the roads, walking the dog or just stayed at home and ignored the evacuation orders

WEBlue

Clearly!

yellowroom

Yes, I know that Irene was bad in New England, I have friends in CT who were also without power (and thus water) for eight days. I know it was the 5th biggest storm ever in terms of damage, cost etc etc.

But if you remember, New York City was forecast for a long while to get a direct hit until Irene did a slight shift in course, and then not much really happened in NYC (in comparison to VT, CT etc) apart from Battery Park getting wet. So how hard did Mayor Bloomberg's team have to work this time to get his message out past a wave of "yeah, yeah, heard it before...."

Look, I'd be happy if they had Mayor Bloomberg and Gov Christie on a loop going "don't be stupid, get out". Have all the emergency teams, Police, Fire service etc etc on the tv and radio 24/7 in advance. What I am arguing against is the breathless hyperbole of the news & weather forecasters that don't seem to get things in perspective and are presenting it as entertainment in need of pulling in the viewing figures rather than a true public service broadcast for the safety of the population. The attached picture is a screenshot from the Weather channel website yesterday lunchtime. Informative or hysterical?

Yes, its devastating for you if someone has died, or if you've lost your house or business, I'm not denying that and those affected have all my sympathies. But overall, out of the 50+million people that were and are in the path of the storm, the damage I'm seeing on tv does not justify the drama or ongoing coverage. But then I suppose a headline of "Sandy - not as bad as it could have been" isn't good for viewing figures.

N1cky

Do you not think "it's not as bad as it could have been" in part because people heeded the warnings?

yellowroom

We're obviously talking past each other, so I'm going to summarise my point as follows and leave it:

Warnings from National Weather Service, National Hurricane Centre, The Mayor, The Governor, The President, your local Police, etc = Good
Dramatic, hyperbolic news as entertainment = Bad and potentially leading to a "cry wolf" situation next time.

Bluegrass Lass

+100

moneypenny20

Ok, so out of interest, given that you appear to be some sort of expert, what should 'they' have said, given the size and apparent strength of the thing when it was just offshore at Atlantic City? Had they not made such a big deal with it, what would NYC be like now, if they'd not shut the bridges and subway (only second time ever shut down for weather I believe). I'm honestly interested because when we have bloody big cyclones, weather systems hitting the Far North Queensland, the powers that be get strife if they say how big it is and then it isn't or if they downplay it and thousands lose their properties.

'They' can't win whatever they do or say.

mikelincs

Judging on the pictures and interviews shown on UK TV today, then I think the people who did the warning should be congratulated, and those that ignored them may well have got what they deserved. The pictures of the damage to Queens and Manhattan were some of the worse I've seen, and remember that if this had been in countries with poor building regulations etc the loss of life would have been tremendous. I saw some pictures of water pouring into parts of the subway system, imagine what would have happened if they hadn't heeded the warning and kept running.