Most Hurricanes are not as predictable as Irene was, and can strengthen or change direction relatively suddenly.
The precautions take in light of Irene turned out to be excessive, but they were reasonable.
Bloomberg see himself as The Great Leader, and I can't stand the extent to which he is willing and eager to insert government in the lifes of citizens, but it was an almost no-win situation for him.
Either way he was going to have critics, but if this storm turned out to be Katrina Visits New York, he would have been tarred and feathered.
With hurricanes we can always rely on a few constants:
*The damage will never be as heavy or as light as predicted.
*The Media will hype the storm as the possible end of the world.
*Insurance rates will increase
*Innumberable pundits and columnists will drone on and on about how the storm is proof that we are helpless before the fury of Mother Nature.
*Geraldo Rivera will be standing in knee deep water telling his cameraman where to focus and likening the experience to his days embedded in military units in Iraq
*The contruction industry will get a boost
*Idiots will dies as a result of surfing during the storm
*A great many people will cheat their insurance companies and a great many more will be cheated by unscrupulous contractors
*Critics will line up after the storm has passed to accuse the official responses as too little or too much
Now we can look forward to a new constant:
The NY Times will raise the spectre of Global Warming
Quote:"The scale of Hurricane Irene, which could cause more extensive damage along the Eastern Seaboard than any storm in decades, is reviving an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28climate.html?_r=2
Of course for the Times, this is a rhetorical question.
Nevermind that Isabell in 2003 was a Category 2 hurricane and Irene was a Category 1 storm (when this article was written) on it's way to petering out to a respectable but not catastrophic Tropical Storm by the time it hit NY.
The author's desire to link Monster Storms with Global Warming is almost palpable, but I give him credit for a degree of objectivity I've grown less accustomed to with the Times. His bias remains clear but his journalistic training seems to have held up.
