Social Question
What do you think about the media going on about how great the governors and mayors in the NE handled the hurricane?
I think it is good for them to get acknowledgment, and to be an example other government officials can learn from, but before every hurricane local channels have pretty much 24 hour coverage of the storms a day or two ahead, and tons of information and coverage on shelters, evacuations, precautions to take, etc. Even Louisana, New Orleans, before Katrina had evacuations and shelters and warnings, and advice. They definitely made some errors, but the majority of the errors had to do with not asking for federal help before or after the storm, it was not related to getting information out to the citizens, they had days of media and weather coverage before the storm. I watched that storm, I went through Katrina when it came over FL, and then watched that thing getting stronger and stronger as it crossed the gulf. It was obvious it would be really bad, not even thinking about a levee breaking. Most of the country is probably unaware of everything that was done during that storm. Not defending how it was all handled in the end, just trying to put some balance on what happened.
In FL we not only have all that coverage we have information during the governors announcements done simultaneously with a sign language interpreter, and then also given in Creole and Spanish. I would guess the northeast also got information out in many language on their local channels. For me, from a Floridian perspective, the NE did what is always done during a hurricane.
Just to be clear, I have absolutely no problem with stations interviewing and showing clips of the governors giving their messages to the citizenry, I think they should play them over and over again to get the information out. I am only commenting on shows like Meet The Press talking about how this compares to other storms. One commentator on the show pointed out a hurricane is not like a tsunami or an earthquake, there is all sorts of time to prepare and evaluate the situation. Just seems sort of political to me.