Even after deducting 30 percent for media exaggeration, Sandy
will be a horrendous event with human suffering and financial costs
of near Biblical proportions. So we can take this seriously, and
extend our prayers to those in harm’s way, while still questioning
why we must endure the additional storm of clichés without number
from the media and the stylized form of storm coverage.
Viewers visiting The Weather Channel, or just about any other TV
news program, will surely encounter the young correspondent
strapped to a utility pole, or staggering down a beach, while being
lashed by wind and rain. He will tell us in the most serious tone
that the wind is rising and the rain is coming down, which any fool
could see without Jasper saying a word, or even being there, where
he will surely be under the feet of first responders who have a
legitimate reason for being there. We’ll see the usual fools
surfing in dangerous waves, or rubber-necking at unsafe beaches and
sea walls. (If there is power next Tuesday where these people live,
some of them will vote, which should give us all pause.)
Sandy, as all previous storms, will invoke the standard storm of
TV news clichés: People will “brace” for Sandy, though it’s not
clear how one does this. Some will even “batten down the hatches”
while bracing and “hunkering down.” We have learned that Sandy
“packs dangerous winds” and that “authorities are urging extreme
caution.” We will learn that “some people are not heeding the
warnings.” I guess Republicans can take some tiny comfort in
hearing something other than themselves described as
“extreme.”
As I write this early Monday afternoon I have just heard
President Obama in the White House press room telling us that Sandy
is a “large and dangerous storm.” Those just in from Mars or who
had not watched television for three minutes over the past week
would not have known this.
Speaking of our rookie president, he will certainly use this
storm shamelessly to try to look presidential. This story would
have shoved Benghazi off the front pages, even if the mainstream
media considered Benghazi and associated abominations news, which
they don’t. Whatever good work any government agency at any level
does over the next week, Obama will attempt to take credit for it.
Stand by for a storm of law suits by lefties in any state that Mitt
Romney wins where the power is off for any time at all.
In our current 24-hour news cycle, time always exceeds the
amount of news needed to fill the time, so speculation is rife. We
hear all manner of “worst case scenarios.” We are also treated to
endless film of people stripping food, water and batteries from
stores in the storm’s path and people boarding up their homes. This
helps fill out the available time in a way clear answers to the
important questions never can: Where is the storm? How bad is it?
Where is it going? When will it get there? How long will it
stay?
Of course the worst of Sandy will be the death and human
suffering it causes, and this is the most important story and has
the first claim on our attention and sympathy. But for some reason
the speculators have hardly mentioned what the possible financial
cost of Sandy could be. I shudder to think how much it will cost to
repair the damage. Do the Chinese even have enough money to loan a
broke America to cover the nut on this one? How many Army divisions
will Obama have to de-activate, and how many Navy ships
de-commissioned, in order to send FEMA trailers to Mystic,
Connecticut, and other affected precincts? The cost of Sandy could
well be a multiple of that of Katrina because of the densely
populated area Sandy is aimed at (this is without all those
doublewides sitting unoccupied in Mystic).
No matter how you measure it, this will be a tragic week for
Americans in or out of Sandy’s dangerous path, my aesthetic
nit-picks about storm coverage aside. For those who believe in and
have the habit of prayer, this is the time for it.
