Were all the warnings and media coverage about Hurricane Irene too much? Was the “storm” over-hyped?
I have spoken to many people and seen a number of comments suggesting that there was way too much coverage about the hurricane and that all the government warnings, alerts and evacuations were an over reaction and that they really went to far.
In my opinion I think the government and media handled it correctly for a number of reasons.
*Hurricanes are unpredictable and the slightest change in speed and/or direction could have caused much more devastation in many areas that weren’t as affected as they thought they would be.
*If they didn’t take it as seriously and tempered their warnings and the storm turned out to be much worse….there would have been greater loss of life and our rescue personnel would have had a much more difficult job to do.
*Many people in the Northeast don’t believe these type of events can happen up here and aren’t as prepared as they should be. The constant coverage helped to educate people on what they need to do and the different preparedness steps they could take.
*Hundreds of thousands of people are now better prepared overall which will pay dividends down the road. People have purchased preparedness kits, first aid supplies, flashlights and batteries and other important items.
*We will never know how much less destruction there was because people took basic preparedness steps such as: bringing in outdoor furniture, moving potential flood items to higher ground, protecting vehicles, pruning trees, etc.
*With the constant warnings and alerts there were millions less people on the roads. Most people kept inside to ride out the storm. This potentially saved many lives as tree limbs and flooded streets often cause accidents.
*With less vehicles on the road…it made moving around for emergency response personnel much easier.
At the end of the day..what is the down side? People know more, they have survival supplies in their homes now?
Please comment and let us know your thoughts.
