Irene overhyped?

[peggyfromwastate]

I never post in the debate forum, and I don't know if this is a debatable topic, but given some of the criticism some news outlets have lodged against other news outlets, do you think that Hurricane Irene was overhyped?

I know in THIS market (DC) it was majorly hyped, but the wall to wall coverage with the special hurricane graphics didn't start until at least the hurricane was closeby. Vs the wall to wall coverage of the earthquake and the constant dire predictions of aftershocks. Gag.

Anyway,

I think that HERE in DC the hurricane was overhyped, but if the storm had shifted just a little to the west, it would've been a major event here. Major. Hurricane Isabel was a tropical depression by the time it hit here, and it wiped out power for almost everyone for days and days. Trees were down everywhere. It was a huge mess.

I think on a national scale, the hype missed the mark. Clearly the flooding is historic and horrendous, and rainbabies' FB pictures are just heartbreaking. But I don't even remember in the hype hearing a lot of worries about the flooding... Just worries about NYC? NJ has been majorly flooded too-- It just seemed like that aspect of the storm was not well vetted before the storm hit.

Any thoughts?

[corn poffi]

It was the usual east coast bias. I don't think it was overhyped before the storm, just because I think it was important to make sure people knew what could happen. I'm in the midwest, so I didn't get sick of it at that point. Once the storm happened, and underwhelmed the national media, I got sick of it. But again, east coast bias...if there's a blizzard in the midwest, it's not a story, but if it snows three inches in NYC, it's a national tragedy.

[SuzySunshine]

I agree with the east coast bias, I think because it could have hit such major population centers they were right to overdo it to some extent. However I also think, its mother nature, no one could tell you where or how strong it was going to hit. Now that it has hit they need to focus on those areas that have REALLY been damaged and how people can help which being on the west coast they seem to be, at least here.

I think as with most major storm events a overhype before the storm isn't necessarily a bad thing to warn people. Its the idiotic coverage after, like last week's earthquake, that turns everyone off. Of course you also have to worry about the overhype pre-storm because you have to worry people will start ignoring it like they did the tornado warnings in Joplin.

[Pollyanna]

Honestly, with 24/7 news coverage I think EVERYTHING is overhyped. And of course with these types of events they now try to make it political. Bush caused Katrina, Obama didn't prevent Irene...gag. The storm passes and if there is not a sexy or political nugget the news can grab onto it's dropped. All the flooding that is occurring will be forgotten, I mean look at the Iowa flooding, the middle Tennessee flooding, the tornados that have nearly wiped out cities and killed hundreds, etc. All those events get minimal coverage yet the media still marks anniversary dates for Katrina. Honestly I can hardly watch the news at all anymore. I read most of it online and determine for myself what is important.

[alison]

I agree with Pollyanna, although there are far many more people living on the East Coast than anywhere else in the US, so I understand why they get more media attention.

I will say that the blizzard that hit the Midwest in February got a ton of attention in the PNW. Why should we care???

[diggitydot]

Weather, in general, is over-hyped anymore. However, with 40+ deaths as a cat 1, I think the warnings were appropriate considering the sheer number of population in its path.

And yes to the NYC/DC bias.

[oceanchild]

I in general support preparedness, and sometimes it takes hype to get people to actually prepare, so that doesn't bug me that much.

I do think stories from NYC and DC are treated as national news while stories from Denver are local news. Although sudden weather events seem to make the national news wherever they are.

I also think this has a lot to do with Katrina. Everybody wants to avoid another Katrina, so a hurricane coming for cities gets a lot of attention. And then if it doesn't turn out to be as bad as Katrina, you start hearing accusations of over-hyping it.

In conclusion, yeah, probably more hype than necessary, but I'm not that bothered by it.

[scarlett09]

Peggy, I agree in some media markets the storm was overhyped. In our media market, it was definitely not overhyped, considering the storm did make a landfall here. Up until about 36 hours before the storm, the center of the storm was supposed to track more towards the west, tracking directly over us. Having the eye of the storm or the strong right front quadrant pass over our area was a real possibility and quite scary, TBH. While you had tropical depression conditions, we had tropical storm conditions as the storm passed to our west as a Category 1 hurricane. There is some damage in the area, mostly due to downed trees, downed wires and flooding. I think that some of the evacuations in some areas may have been overkill, but again, you just don't know until the last minute. Better to evacuate 700K people sooner rather than later.

The flooding is catastrophic in some areas, a ton of rain on top of already saturated ground from a wet August. There is damage that has never been seen in a lot of places, particularly in NJ and VT. I agree that more focus needs to be on this now, especially in VT.

I've been blind to the East coast media bias, essentially because I lived here my entire life. But now I'm paying more attention to it. I think, like Pollyanna said, we need to look for other news sources beyond the national media/cable news networks sometimes. Our local media did a pretty good job, between the local news stations and newspapers. Some counties/towns need to have better ways of getting information out in an emergency, i.e. improved websites, social media, etc. It was difficult to find information about evacuations and shelters for people that we cared about.

Social media was very important during the storm. It enabled me to keep in touch with friends and family, although sometimes there was more hype/misinformation, but at least I knew everyone I cared about was alright. It also caused my DH's former roommate and his wife, who were all annoyed by the hurricane updates on FB (even though they lived in an area hit by the hurricane and had water in their basement), to de-friend me because they couldn't take a joke about the weather (that other people also made but weren't de-friended by them). Immaturity at its finest, lol.

diggity, ITA. A lot of those deaths were freak accidents (tree limbs falling on houses, cars, etc.) but there were still people who ventured out in the storm and died because they were careless/clueless/thought the storm was "no big deal".

[Cinderella]

Considering the demographics of the population there were over 65 million people in a condensed area on the eastern seaboard that were affected. This doesn't include those with friends and family back east, and those coming from other states to help the devestated areas, so who knows how many that affects out of the rest of the 235 million people in the US. I think it's fair to say that it's considered a national story as a natural disaster that affected many of the original 13 colonies which have deep roots here. Call it east coast bias if you like or it could just be chance that the hurricane was hitting this area of the US and considered a historic storm.

Focus reports indicate the number one reason people turn on the TV to watch the news is for the weather. So they're going to cover the weather and an approaching hurricane affecting potentially millions of lives makes for a compelling story. What I observed was a trickle of news the week prior. Then a few days before hand as the storm swelled there were more stories. It was as the storm was happening that we saw Wall-To-Wall-Coverage on all the major networks over the weekend. The storms damage made for good video where people are gonig to want to watch that. Kind of like how you get stuck in a traffic jam at and incredibly slow pace when an accident happens because of all the looky lou's who want to rubber neck the accident. The damage to the car, the glass shattered, the jaws of life for extrication are all compelling video that people want to see and know about and learn what happened. That's kind of what the hurricane footage is with it's crashing waves, and torn apart houses, and fallen trees, and the faces of those affected for their reactions. Now the coverage seems to be how much did the damage of this hurricane actually cost.

If there was anything hyped it was the potential estimate of damage to the actual estimate of damage. The worst and best case senarios played out because with weather being a fickle thing nobody really knows what is going to happen. Kind of like with politics when you try to vote for the lesser of two evils but you don't really know what the outcome is going to be because we aren't mind readers or future predictors. I think when a story like this turns to politics that shows the agenda of a person passionate about politics rather than compassionate for those affected by natural disasters. I could actually write a lot more about the nature of political discourse in the States on public forums and why it is the way it is, but I better get back to work now.

[ladymoreta]

I agree with the general sentiment. Yes, we need coverage to make people aware of it so they will prepare, but too much hype for smaller storms will backfire and make people tune out warnings for large ones.

[Ladybug]

Honeslty...no. We're totally flooded and washed out around here. I know a familly with three girls in our school who's entire house burned down and they're looking for uniform donations for their girls to start school next week. We know many families that were completed flooded out. One of the school's deans has a river flowing through his basement right now. The fire department knocked one basement window out to relieve pressure and is pumping the water out of the basement window on the other side of his house.

If you think it's overhyped then you're watching way to much fawking news. Turn off your television and find something more productive to do.

Like debate on iMSN.

[SuzySunshine]

Annie, I was wondering about you when I heard some stories about areas around you. I hope you and yours are damage free.

[peggyfromwastate]

Thanks for checking in!! I was wondering how you guys have been.

The local news guys were covering the hurricane from ocean city where the reporter was standing right by the sea wall and getting covered in sea foam. The sea wall wasn't breached, there was no flooding, and the entire newscast (anchors on down) were pushing this guys sea foam bit on twitter-- they kept telling everyone to go to twitter to vote for it or something like that.

It seems like around here the storm coming was really sexy, but damage in more rural areas just isn't that sexy... I heard they are raiding the Joplin fund to pay for immediate recovery efforts in Vermont, etc.

[corn poffi]

The day before the storm, our local news interviewed a woman who had a cousin that lived in NYC. If that's not overhype, I'm not sure what is.

Ps I found it funny that they couldn't find somebody with a closer relative...that's some great reporting there...

It's events like this that make me happy I'm not using my journalism degree.

[corn poffi]

I wanted to add that I've watched about an hour of news total in the last week. This (and football) were the only stories.