I do hope everyone in the Going Greenosphere survived the passage of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene without incident. I do know that certain Rhode Island-based members of the WhatTheyThinkosphere will be without power until Saturday. Other folks I know in parts of New York City are also powerless. Up here in Saratoga Springs, Sunday was windy and raining torrentially, the streets were flooded, and power was out selectively around town (thankfully not in my little enclave). In Albany, a Pearl Street diner’s plate glass window blew out and shot across the street—thankfully no one was in its path. There was a mudslide in Troy—I didn’t even know such a thing was possible in Troy. Even a day later, I got an e-mail from a friend whose commute home was delayed because of a “runaway barge” on the Mohawk River that threatened to hit some bridge supports. (Barging right in, I guess.) Vermont is a disaster area, too, and certain other parts of Upstate New York have been cut off by bridges washing away. So when we read about New York City being spared—thankfully, yes, but not everyone else was quite so lucky. Cable news and The Weather Channel were in full “weather porn” mode, with the usual dorks standing out on seawalls being lashed by the wind and rain. Really? (There was one incident on The Weather Channel that involved some, uh, NSFW activities in the background that turned up on YouTube. I have noticed some comments afterward that the storm was a “bust” and that everyone was freaking out over what turned out to be nothing. I dunno. From what I read, it was quite a devastating storm in some places, and even if it wasn’t as devastating as people had anticipated—and well, we should be thankful that it wasn’t, because it could very easily have gone the other way and caused even more damage and loss of life. Personally, I think it wise to err on the side of caution when it comes to these things. Says LiveScience:
From North Carolina to Vermont, Irene killed at least 27 people, forced 2.4 million people to evacuate and caused billions of dollars in damage, according to news reports. The big problem was not hurricane strength winds, but heavy rains and massive flooding. ... Irene dumped six to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) of rain across New England. Nearly every major Vermont highway was damaged from Irene's heavy rains, reported Vermont Public Radio. The flooding is the worst for that state in 73 years...
So why was New York City spared? One lucky break was that it had weakened from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm by the time it got up this far. But the important thing to remember is that this was what was essentially forecast. The real danger, as everyone had said, was from rain and flooding, not so much from strong winds. At any rate, we should not think that just because this “petered out” (did it?) by the time it got up to the Northeast that we should be complacent when warned of future storms. Like, for example, Tropical Storm Katia which is now forming—and may become a hurricane.