Despite hysterical headlines of an “historic” storm: Irene is a Category 1 Hurricane

fire dog lake ^ | Aug 27, 2011 | Liz Berry

[KeyLargo]

Despite hysterical headlines of an “historic” storm: Irene is a Category 1 Hurricane

By: Liz Berry Saturday August 27, 2011 7:44 am

cross post from IfLizWereQueen The Truth of Irene’s Strength? –not nearly that of her related headlines for the past two days from the US media.

Here is the latest report from the National Hurricane Center as of 6:03 AM Central Time and the hurricane still has not made landfall on the US shores.

*Note: A Category 1 is the lowest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale before a storm is classified as a tropical storm.

I guess they’ll have to dream up another distraction to keep our minds off the jobs that they are not creating, the Keystone Pipeline, and other real issues as these headlines have now proven themselves to be what they are: Hyperboles of the first degree. [On the plus side maybe this is their idea of stimulating the economy as no doubt millions of people went out and purchased items they might not have otherwise bought--water, flashlights, motel rooms inland, etc. Of course this may not have been on the plus side for many of these people as they might not have been able to afford these purchases.]

But the problem and danger with this type of exaggerated and irresponsible reporting is the same as that of the little boy who cried wolf. Maybe next time it really will be a Category 3 hurricane and thousands of people will not heed the warnings.

Addendum [added after publication of post]

This is not like it is the first time that the public have been grossly mislead by false impending apocalyptic warnings from the main stream media. Only a few months ago they were predicting that major portions of the West Coast were going to be consumed by a tsumini, resulting from the Japanese earthquake.

[Doe Eyes]

So much hype and hysteria over this? What a joke.

All the "experts" with the world's fanciest computer models can't even predict what a hurricane will do with very much accuracy, yet they want us to believe they can predict what the temperatures will decades and centuries from now. It's beyond laughable.

You need to check the local Prayer Thread.

Prayers induced God to reduce the storm to a Cat 1. Had there been even more prayers, it would have veered east and missed the US completely.

[jpl]

One man is dead in NC, there is reason to take this "joke" seriously. The people in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas aren't laughing and neither are the rest of us in the path of this "joke".

It's unfortunate that a man died, and that some people are getting adversely affected, but a person dying in a storm is hardly unusual. It happens all the time.

The media and the so-called "experts" were hyping this up to be one of the worst hurricanes of our time. It has turned out to be anything but, it's a fairly run-of-the-mill hurricane. And you know it.

[rockabyebaby]

Reminds me of the media induced hysteria over the “bird flu” and other stories they have manufactured in the past. When you have talking heads on TV 24 hours a day, you have to manufacture drivel for them to spout. TV news is all useless bullshit.——
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary (like a hyped storm)
...there certainly seems to be increasing hype, and more “necessity” so it seems to have a population “controlled” by a ‘potential’ crisis.

Ask the people in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas about the "hyped" storm. I agree the bird flu was a bunch of crap just like the H1N1 was even more crap, however, look at the damage in the aforementioned places and tell me the media was spouting drivel. There is one man dead in NC so far - "hyped" storm - I think not. Cat 1 storms are not just a little rain event, they can be deadly.

[Fresh Wind]

LOL!

Apparently that Cat 4 thing originated within the NHC (i.e. the government).

[KeyLargo]

[hinckley buzzard]

I think the concept here is that you can lose power for awhile, get 5 inches of rain, any time, or somebody can be hit by a falling tree limb during any rainstorm, without the media world getting hysterical over it and using it to dominate the news.

These things happen every day and nobody knows or cares, outside the local viewing area.

[rockabyebaby]

I guess I respect mother nature more than the rest of the people on this thread. Based on the information the media had when this hurricane started out is was pretty intense, ask the people in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. It hasn’t hit here yet so I can’t say it’s a run of the mill hurricane.

[Vaduz]

LOL

[muawiyah]

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=678&sid=2516819 says we already have 400,000 people in Virginia who have lost power and this storm isn't really here yet.

So, whachatalkin'bout?

[magooey]

I woke up with a tree in my bedroom a few years back.

It could have been worse. If you woke up with a horse's head in the bedroom, it is really time to panic.

[muawiyah]

We had several hundred million crows die of West Nile.

[muawiyah]

We had several hundred million crows die of West Nile.

[KeyLargo]

"I think the concept here is that you can lose power for awhile, get 5 inches of rain, any time, or somebody can be hit by a falling tree limb during any rainstorm, without the media world getting hysterical over it and using it to dominate the news.

These things happen every day and nobody knows or cares, outside the local viewing area."

Thanks.

I could not have said it better. :)

You and and a lot of other freepers actually get it!

[KeyLargo]

********BREAKING NEWS FLASH******

****"Obama controls weather - creates thousands of new jobs!!!!"***

Rebuilding Efforts to Give Economy a Boost

By Peter Morici

Published August 27, 2011 | FOXBusiness

"...rebuilding after Irene, especially in an economy with high unemployment and underused resources in the construction and building materials industries, will unleash at least $7 billion in new direct private spending -- likely more as many folks rebuild larger than before, and the capital stock that emerges will prove more economically useful and productive."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/markets/2011/08/27/economic-irene/#ixzz1WFiBBx7J

[The_Sword_of_Groo]

Great photo. Hope you had no damage

[americanophile]

You’re not alone with the heresy. I made this point yesterday on the Hurricane Irene thread, when it was apparent that the apocolyptic predictions were patently absurd, as usual. It’s all east coast media self-obsession. People keep replying to me angrily over there, which naturally generates a response, especially if it’s nasty. Now they’ve tattled on me with the moderator (children), you know how it goes. I’m a despised heretic for something that’s self-evidently true: in terms of media coverage, this is much ado about nothing.

[KeyLargo]

“Fortunately Michigan isn’t known for strong tornadoes. The great lakes really screw with storm systems.”

Looks like Al Gore was right after all. You better get ready for doom and gloom Armageddon in Michigan. Sarc...

chicagotribune.com

Conservationists around Great Lakes plan for climate change

By Kelly April, Tribune reporter

August 28, 2011

The long-term forecast for the Chicago area calls for more wild rains, hailstorms and flooding. Throughout the Great Lakes region, residents can also expect warmer year-round temperatures, more frequent heat waves, lower lake levels and thinner lake ice.

[The Pack Knight]

Ike was only a Cat 2 when it hit Galveston and Houston, and it stands as the third-most destructive Hurricane ever to hit the U.S. in terms of cost. There’s a lot more to this stuff than just the maximum wind speed of a hurricane, particularly when they hit areas like New Jersey that haven’t seen hurricane conditions in over 60 years.

[OldMissileer]

...yet they want us to believe they can predict what the temperatures will decades and centuries from now...

Shhhhhhhhhhh! We're not supposed to notice!

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

If you prepare for a week without power and you still have power, IMO, that is great.

My wife and I (and a big fuzzy cat) live in SE Wisconsin, close to Lake Michigan. We are not in "tornadoes alley" but we still get hit occasionally. I've seen "water spouts" moving along the Michigan shore about a 1/4 mile out. They are scary and also beautiful at the same time. Last summer we had a small tornado pass within a couple of hundred yards of our house as it carved a five mile path of destruction. It was traveling like a sewing machine needle as it would pull up for a bit and later extend to the ground again, sometimes skipping over buildings left totally intact then pulling the neighbor's roof off.

Wisconsin weather includes blizzards and the occasional ice storm so we have put up with the potential loss of power at any time of year for almost 40 years. A couple of years back I bought a 17Kw alternator driven by a duel fuel engine (natural gas or propane). It is wired in through an automatic transfer switch so that if the utility power drops out for 30 seconds the gen-set cranks up and switches over without human intervention. It is big enough to carry all of our 120 vac loads and the 220 vac well pump. I drop the electric stove, clothes dryer, water heater, & air conditioning to keep the size of the alternator affordable. By the time everything was installed and wired in the total cost was a shade over $5,000, which I consider a good deal for the peace of mind it gives.

I added uninterruptable power supplies to feed all the computers and entertainment gear to smooth out the 30 second "bump" when switching over to "local power".

Our worst outage was four days in a winter ice storm. The basement filled with water to the top step of the basement stairs. A chest freezer was floating around like a rowboat and everything inside it had to be pitched. When we got pumped out the furnace looked to be in bad shape. The insulation soaked up and held enough water to cause rusting of the sheet metal housing and it wound up looking like an old Ford! I'd guess the total damages we suffered over the 40 years we lived here were more then the costs of on site power. In 20-20 hindsight, if we had started out w/ our own gen-set when we first moved in the $5000 would have been much less ($2000???) and there would have been little or no damage to pay out.

Regards,
GtG