Aug 27 2011

Politicizing the Weather

Category: politics,Weatheramuzikman @ 8:00 am

I think politicians learned one significant message during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  If you are a person holding public office you must not be perceived as underestimating the threat an approaching hurricane.   Never mind what may or may not be factual, sadly that seems to have taken a back seat to political weather posturing (for lack of a better term).  Whatever your opinion of George Bush, some of the claims made about his culpability in the Hurricane Katrina disaster were frankly absurd.  But everyone else got the message loud and clear.  The result?  Rational assessment and appropriate preparation have been replaced by politically driven psuedo-hysteria.  Hurricane Irene is very likely not going to be the biggest storm in the last 50 years to touch the eastern seaboard.

Are all these orders and actions by prominent politicians an appropriate response to hurricane Irene?  Time will tell, but there is already evidence that the virtually apocalyptic predictions may not be realized.  Will there be damage? Sure. Deaths? I hope not. But we are setting up a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” scenario if we sound an unnecessarily shrill alarm for a storm that may not deserve it, thereby creating a populace that learns to ignore or downplay the warnings when a real monster comes ashore.

5 Responses to “Politicizing the Weather”

  1. Anthony says:

    I just think that its incredibly irresponsible for obama to allow this hurricane to happen. To be honest its fun to blame him though, if they got to blame bush for the weather I will do the same!

  2. tonedeaf says:

    Actually, I think that any pres is damned if he does and damned if he don’t. Especially post Katrina.

  3. kdippre says:

    These events always come down to local officials doing their jobs and the local weather casters giving people solid information. It often depends on which “side” of the hurricane happens to be impacting your area. Although on the national news it looked as if we were being wiped off the face of the map, we really only received about 2 inches of rain and some wind gusts here and there…. a downed tree across our backyard fence, etc. If you were about 20 – 30 miles east of us (east of the 95), then you were in some significant danger. If you lived in the outer banks, then it’s likely you evacuated 3 days ago. Again, local authorities doing their jobs.

  4. amuzikman says:

    tonedeaf – My point exactly!
    kdippre – Precisely what should happen. Local authorities doing their job. Let the politicians and the finger-pointers stay home and out of the way. In fact I can think of little that is more worthless and distracting than to have a VIP politician coming to view the aftermath of a natural disaster.

  5. kdippre says:

    always a good photo op for them.

Leave a Reply