Disaster Pr0n 0

I just got an email from a friend in Colorado who said, among other things:

Well, listening to the news here, it sounds like the east coast will be knocked off the side of the country.

I haven’t been paying attention to broadcast news, but I was reminded of how, when I lived in the Greater Philadelphia Co-Prosperity Sphere, any threat of a storm became Arma-OMG-geddon. I haven’t gotten a sense of that kind of coverage here, but the Philly local TV news market is sensationalist by any standard.

Here, such coverage would make a little more sense–this is a coastal area.

There, protected by the sixty-mile sandbar of New Jersey, I found it silly and stupid.

One of my favorite memories of broadcast news OMGness:

About a decade ago, there were reports that a storm might make landfall along the New Jersey Shore; I forget which one.

Local broadcast media were in full we-have-to-foment-panic mode.

The storm missed. They usually missed; in that part of the world, hurricanes come ashore at full strength maybe twice or three times a century.

Cut to the local news . . . .

“And now to Joe Hairgel, who is on location at Long Beach Island. Joe?”

(Picture of Joe, every hair in place in a fresh breeze, on the boardwalk under bright blue sky in front of a peaceful beach scene, the sunrise at his back. The surf is somewhat larger than average).

“Melvin, if the storm had come ashore, the scene behind me now would be quite different . . . .”

As my mother would have said, “The biggest nothing.”

Aside:

Had the storm hit, could anything have been much dumber than sending a news crew into harm’s way to stand on the boardwalk in 135 mph winds? Honestly, one huge wave does look a lot like any other huge wave.

“Hurricanes cause waves” is not news.

It’s disaster pr0n.