Why all the foofooraw about Irene is a Very Good Thing.

[TygrBright]

Are we overreacting to Irene? Evacuating NYC, massive evacuations and preparations all up and down the mid-Atlantic coast, empty shelves where bottled water and batteries used to be, sandbags everywhere, cable news reporters being outstandingly stupid, the airwaves full of advice on surviving the Irenecalypse...

And Irene, by all current accounts, looks to be not a whole lot worse than Isabel, or several others over the last few decades. Which is not exactly a doddle, no walk in the park, certainly. It is a fierce and damaging storm that is claiming lives and doing large amounts of damage and is scary as hell.

That said, is it "evacuate more than 350,000 people from NYC" scary? Is it "call out the national guard, declare emergencies, set up FEMA staging areas, etc." scary?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm betting not. Irene is already down to Cat. 1, with winds clocking at 80 mph., and although you never know with hurricanes, they are notoriously prone to lose steam over land masses.

But it is still a Very Good Thing that jurisdictional officials from the Federal government on down to the town council of Bumfuck Beach are pulling out all the stops and, incidentally, spending a lot of tax dollars to do so.

Why? A bunch of reasons, starting with the obvious:

The way effects of long-term human-related climate change are snowballing and combining with solar weather cycles and other natural disasters, we are going to see a LOT MORE major catastrophic weather events in densely populated areas. We need to learn to prepare and manage such events and this helps.

But also:

Events that take us out of our individual silos and put us into overriding mutual concern with neighbors and community residents help to remind us that we are not, have never been, and never will be islands. We are mutually interdependent and our sociopolitical environment must be configured accordingly.

And even:

While the economic disruption and the costs of the hurricane damage will be painful, disruption will also shake loose some assumptions and reorient spending in unanticipated ways that might be a catalyst for positive as well as negative change.

And as always, events like this remind us of real priorities even in the face of the manufactured hype on the teevee.

So, if it all turns out to be an expensive exercise with a huge sigh of relief and some bitching and grumbling about all the inconvenience and the things that DID go wrong, it's still on the credit side of the ledger.

We need to live in more respect for nature and the environment around us.

I won't say Irene is a good thing-- there will be too much misery in its wake for that. But there are entries on the credit side of the ledger. We're learning. Slowly and painfully and at a hellish cost, but we're learning.

wearily,
Bright

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Imagine if everyone yawned jadedly and ignored it, and the worst happened?

That's the essential story of Katrina.

This storm had the *potential* to do serious damage. Thankfully it appears it will not live up to the hype. It could as easily have exceeded it.

I, for one, am glad we marshaled resources in the right way instead of the Bush way.

[eleny]

4. P.S. Stinky...

I could show you some neighborhoods in Far Rockaway that would make you think it was the 1940s. Not very well prepared for putting up a shoulder against heavy rain & wind.

You have the right idea.

[ellenrr]

5. Katrina's victims were disproportionately Black and low-income

This storm's victims are obviously anybody who is in its path. Any class, any race.


Therefore no matter who is president, this storm would be treated differently than Katrina.
And the president has nothing to do with the response to this storm.
And I have no reason to believe that if Katrina had happened during the reign of Obama the outcome would have been any different.

What...Obama is a nice guy and he wouldn't have let all those Black people die?

pul-lease

[Whisp]

6. jesus

if you really believe that Obama is as careless and ignorant as * ... I have a few words for you after that ellispse that I can't say here.

[klook]

9. +1,000,000 (n/t)

[eleny]

2. Given the bleating from Ron Paul, you know the other side knows what you've figured out

I bet it scares them shitless.

Also, the way Bloomberg is putting things into action, it crossed my mind how this is a good way to see how well the populace can quickly organize and react to a disaster and how well the gov't can do their thing.

I found that the best way to avoid getting too weary is to walk away from the media and do something else around my place. It works even though I grew up 10 minutes drive from where people have been evacuated in Queens, NY. If walking away helped me not fret unreasonably I'm sure it will help those feeling "wearily".

[Waiting For Everyman]

3. I couldn't agree more, TygrBright.

Well said. It's good to see officials acting in a competent way for a change. There's no way I'd criticize what they're doing, including the media. The media is informing people, that's their function.

[SidDithers]

7. K&R for "foofooraw"...

and because this is a very good post. :hi:

Sid

[a la izquierda]

8. Thank you!

My family lives within 10 miles, some as close as a block, of the ocean. I grew up a mile from the back bay, in a notoriously flood-prone area. I'm happy people were evacuated. I'm in Ohio now, and this storm scared the crap out of me.