Gainzo

There have been 31 fatalities caused by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene and Foxnews.com posted the below poll.

Nearly 11,000 people think public officials hype the weather to "scare" people. What a sad state of affairs.

IcyPatriot

Anyone who complains from over hype is generally a miserable person anyways and probably complains about everything. The minor inconvenience of caution is just that - a minor inconvenience.

Gainzo

Exactly. I didn't go running to the supermarket on Saturday to stock up on water, etc as I knew nothing terrible was going to happen where I live. I'm 10 miles from the ocean and another 10 miles from a major river.

The worst thing that would have happened was losing power (which didn't happen).

Watching the news yesterday they had pictures of trees down on rail lines all over the Northeast. Good move by NY/NJ/CT/MA to shut down public transport.

Better to be safe than sorry right? The weird thing is that Vermont has flooding all over the State. That ain't cool.

Nikolai

My genuine concern with overhype is the old "crying wolf" scenario, something that caused many residents in New Orleans to blow off the real threat from Hurricane Katrina. Hurricanes might be rare enough in New England that news outlets can get away with some extra hype, but I'm still not comfortable with the idea that if there is a real threatening storm coming next year, that people will think back to this and blow off the warnings.

YMMV

EDIT - That said, it turns out the real menace was something that was little talked about; flooding, and in an area that was rarely mentioned; Vermont.

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We get what we deserve.

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