Kioti vs irene

[o2batsea]

Had to whip out to the Eastern Shore to get stuff up out of the way of the coming flood. Property is waterfront on a creek a half mile from the Bay. Couldn't have done it without the DK45. Moved several engines, lifted a transmission, giant roll of fiberglass cloth, and more too numerous.
Hope the water does not come up too much. Or the wind does not knock down too many trees.

 

[Mousefield]

Looking like it is going to wet out there. Glad you got that done and the water doesn't get to high.

 

[the6shooter]

Tx. and Ok. could sure use some of that rain, we'll take 1/2 of what your getting.

 

[o2batsea]

Turned out to be a big zero.

 

[IslandTractor]

Turned out to be a big zero.

The hurricane hype that occurs every year is like crying wolf. There were forecasts 48 hours ago that showed Irene would weaken as soon as it hit the Baltimore area but the weather stations, CNN, FOX etc as well as the FEMA guys continued to preach Armageddon. They did the same thing last year at this time with another storm headed for New England.

I think it comes down to exploitation of weather events by media trying to drive ratings and a CYA attitude at FEMA and Governor's offices post Katrina. No penalty for gross exaggeration. No apparent appreciation that the public will start to ignore warnings if they continue to hype the danger.

I'm glad we have sophisticated emergency services and management systems but this hurricane hype needs to be checked. They should be praised and rewarded for accurate and appropriate predictions and actions but penalized for exaggerated responses. Maybe the penalty should just be bad publicity but something has to be done to balance the equation so their incentive is to do what is necessary rather than whatever their worst case nightmare is. NOAA is almost as bad. We had wind predictions of 50-60 knots with gusts to 75 this afternoon in Narragansett Bay even in forecasts published this afternoon. Reality was about twenty knots lower across the board. Big difference. Some private models/websites had it right and I know they were using NOAA data so it is not the data but the publicizing of worst case possibility without a caveat. I would far prefer a reasonable assessment (point estimate) with a carefully worded statement on confidence intervals rather than being fed only the extreme estimates from their models/data.

 

[NSBound]

The hurricane hype that occurs every year is like crying wolf........

I hear what you're saying and in many ways agree, but they're attributing 21 deaths to the storm, and billions of $$ in damage, so it wan't all hype.

 

[IslandTractor]

I hear what you're saying and in many ways agree, but they're attributing 21 deaths to the storm, and billions of $$ in damage, so it wan't all hype.

Understood. Mother Nature can be a real Bit...ch. Still, at least one of those deaths was some poor guy who had a heart attack putting up plywood storm protection and another was a someone who ran off the road while evacuating before the storm. Many of the others (not all) were people killed by trees that fell on their houses. Not sure how the warning helped them.

My point is basically that we all know storms happen. Yes we need to be prepared but it really doesn't help much to make a week long media circus out of each hurricane that comes up the east coast. Some of the advice given over the air is pretty awful too: "go buy bottled water" for example. Why? Do folks not have pots and pans to fill with the same water they are drinking every day? And if there is a temporary power outage for over 2-4 hours, why should people throw out all the perishable food in their refrigerator? Would you throw that food out if you took that long to get home from the supermarket? If there are pathogens (really only uncooked poultry and perhaps hamburger are issues these days) then COOK the food before you eat it. If you have a long power outage of course the food will spoil but to have worried mothers tossing everything in their refrigerator because the power was out for a while is bogus. Teach people what the real issues are rather than giving hyper conservative wasteful advice. That's all I'm asking FEMA and their buddies to do. Rant over.:thumbsup:

 

[o2batsea]

FEMA is one of those agencies that have lost their way. The acronym is for the FEDERAL EMERGENCY Management Agency, not the Federal EMERGENCY Agency. That is to say they were set up to keep Government working in case the Russkies dropped the big one.
Hurricanes and Earthquakes were thrust in their laps cuz the public demanded Fed bailout for the uninsured mississippi flood victims in the late 90s.

 

[indianaEPH]

FEMA is one of those agencies that have lost their way. The acronym is for the FEDERAL EMERGENCY Management Agency, not the Federal EMERGENCY Agency. That is to say they were set up to keep Government working in case the Russkies dropped the big one.
Hurricanes and Earthquakes were thrust in their laps cuz the public demanded Fed bailout for the uninsured mississippi flood victims in the late 90s.

You got that right. It seems that it's just another example of the decline of our government. All agency are overly sensitive to the politics of the moment. They seem to be overly concerned with being politically correct. In this case looking like they are on the ball. I know I feel better knowing the BHO is in the situation room.

The big concern is the cry wolf scenario. That will get people killed eventually

 

[MarkV]

I understand the frustration with the "cry wolf" attitude that seems to go on. On the other hand....a few years ago the National Weather Service did not make a big deal of a thunderstorm going through Atlanta and it turned into a tornado which caused big problems. Of course they were criticized severely for not sounding an alarm so now a drizzle comes along and we are advised to head for cover. Hard for me to blame them for being conservative when so many don't use common sense and then blame someone else when things go bad.

Glad so many made it through the storm unscathed. Sorry for those of you that got hit hard.

MarkV