Funny phone conversation with a friend from the old employer - a different subsidiary, but we became friends at the first legal meeting we attended together and stayed in touch. We hadn't talked in a long time, so we spent an hour on the phone. Interesting insight to Hurricane News Coverage. She's in a part of South FL that was untouched by Charley and only lightly tapped by Frances. We live in the same state. Let me repeat that for clarity.
She had NO idea that the Charley damage in Central Florida was as bad as it was, because her news coverage was all about where the storm made landfall, not where it went an hour or two later. She's a native Floridian, she did Andrew (I was in NC that year) and even she was amazed that the damage was as extensive as it was, because all she heard about was Punta Gorda. She called a lawyer she works with in this area and he said he was the only one who made it into the office, and she asked, innocently, "Why?" She's a few hundred miles away in the same state and had no idea what had happened up the road.
She was more informed about Frances because that landed on the East Coast (where the newspoodles like to cluster because they have better hotels and restaurants). Even so, she didn't know we were as badly affected as we were.
It's all about the landfall on the news, and these storms don't just magically vanish after landfall. That's the EYE of the storm. It's basically meaningless on the ground - the eye can skirt offshore and the storm can kick the crap out of the entire coast it passes - or not. The eye can be very small, the storm very intense, and it's a nuclear blast in a small area - or not. The storm can be huge, like the last two, and the damage is extensive over a huge area - or not. Bad stuff happens long before the freaking eye comes ashore, wherever it may be pinpointed. If it's a big strong storm, by the time the eyewall hits the leading edge has trashed a big swath of territory, and then there's the backside of it. Or you may be in an outer band and it's nothing much, while a county away is smashed hard. Nobody explains this on the news. It's all about the eye, because that's how the weatherbunnies transmit it to the newspoodles. It's stupid.
We were just laughing at the truly shitty news coverage of these stories - even if you are IN hurricane world, if you aren't on the freaking eyewall nobody cares, and if you are watching this from Idaho, trust me, you have no idea what a skewed story you're getting. It's not local damage to a few beach houses.
As further evidence of the "coverage is skewed" - but in the other direction - Girlchild just called in from Tallahassee, where she is at work, on a normal worknight. They are in the "tropical storm warning" zone but they are having a rainy evening. People are out doing normal things. The coverage of these events just sucks - local outlets hype it into "death and mayhem everywhere," when you can look out the window and see that it's only raining. Meanwhile, many miss actual bad stuff happening when it does happen, because thousands without power or water isn't as exciting as, say, actual death. If nobody died, why report it? Never mind that the business disruption and property damage and infrastructure damage is a huge expensive freaking deal, nobody died, it's just a minor story. You'll all be paying for it in your produce prices for months, but nevermind. Just an observation from a non-political front on the vagarities/sensationalism of news coverage.
2 comments:
Jeez, it's all we hear about in Canada. For weeks the hurricanes have been the first or second news story of the day, and we've seen loads of pictures of the damage. (My favourite was a shot of a grapefruit tree up to its knees in water, with the crop of grapefruits bobbing on the surface.) News reports are also big on scenes of people boarding up windows and waiting in line to buy water, plywood and gas.
What they don't focus on as much are the details of a hurricane: I just assumed "landfall" meant the place where a hurricane (ie. the edge of it) reaches land, but apparently I'm wrong on that? I'm also amazed that it takes so darned long for the storm to travel. We've been hearing about preparations for Ivan for what seems like a week now. I don't mean to say we're getting bored, just ... who knew it took so long?
Of course, we don't have any experience with that kind of storm up here. Snow, now, THAT we understand. The last time a hurricane made it this far (Toronto) was in the fifties, and it did a lot of damage and killed some people. Actually, I think it wasn't even a hurricane any longer at that point.
So, we don't necessarily understand the details, but we're paying attention -- to Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Cuba, Jamaica, Grenada, etc. etc. Even if the news isn't reaching Idaho, it's getting out to somebody and we're all wishing you well. (And we're sending hydro trucks, food, water, clothing, medicine, you name it.)
It's horrible here, all hurricane coverage all the time, I can't even watch local news anymore I'm so sick of it! "Landfall" is when the eye comes ashore, but the storm bands can extend hundreds of miles around and in front of it, so that's why it's kind of meaningless to give these reports of "Hurricane Whoever Came Ashore at 2 a.m.!" It had been bad for hours by the time the eye gets there. And these storms have been very, very slow - Charley was pretty fast, it came through and went, but the last two have been just huge and freaking endless. It has been overcast and drizzly here from the edges of Ivan for two days, and I'm HOW far from the storm itself?
It's interesting that your news coverage is so thorough in Canada. True story - I had ordered extra memory for my office computer, and after I got back to work last week got a call from a girl in Salt Lake City, who was very puzzled that the shipment was returned to them as undeliverable. I said "We were closed for the hurricane." And she said, "What hurricane?" :-) Maybe we should all move to SLC, where hurricanes apparently do not make the news.
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