This incessant fearmongering about any and every storm makes people callous to a future real storm. 24 hour coverage, evacuations, mobilizing the entire emergency plan...
Are we overreacting a little?
“.... makes people callous to a future real storm”.
My sentiments exactly. I realize that some storms take on a life of their own and can change rather suddenly. However, many folks will ignore the next “urgings” to stock up or evacuate because of this.
“Are we overreacting a little?”
Yes. The reason? Lawyers.
Once again, the TV media has saved the lives of coastal dwellers. By lining the coastline about every 15’ with hyperventilating reporters in their sponsors’ windbreakers for four days before a hurricane, they pump enough hot air into the core of a storm so that it weakens and dies.
Nothing can stand up to the Wall of Hyperbole that the media and attention-craving politicians throw up during every “Storm of the Century.” Then they wonder why people no longer take their dire warnings seriously and refuse to evacuate their homes, leaving them to looters.
(And just a reminder, even Katrina would not have been that significant a disaster had the corrupt LA politicians not spent billions of federally-funded flood protection money on paving roads to their cronies’ casinos instead.)
After going through Katrina, I'd much rather they "cry wolf" than take the slightest chance of underestimating it. Because of the original forecasts of strength/point of impact, etc., we figured that Katrina would be similar to Georges for our area in S. Mississippi - 110 mph winds and maybe knocking don a few trees. It killed some folks and really messed up a lot more. When a storm tracks like Katrina or Irene (along the coast) the storm pushes water ahead of it, then pushes it on-shore due to the rotation. A CAT 2 will push a lot more water up than a CAT 3 that comes straight at you from the Ocean.
That's kind of unusual for Jersey, but not around here or North Carolina. Thankfully the storm's stronger urges are mostly to the North but they can wobble.
People on the West side of the hurricane are getting gentle almost leisurely weather. People on the East side of the hurricane are getting high winds, enormous rain, dangerous conditions.
NEW YORK will get all of it full force no matter which way it goes because ALL OF IT is going to the Big Apple.
They have not had a hurricane hit them in 187 years.
Virginia currently has 2 million people without electricpower. New York will probably lose power at a comparable rate.