I write this without power, thanks to generator-powered wifi. After a flubbed attempt to venture out and see the damage, I decided to write this. If you were to ask me to speak with a northerner about hurricanes, I’d tell them to respect the power of the storm and understand the damage they hold. If I was speaking to a coastal southerner, I’d say, “it’s a cat 1. I’m making afternoon plans.” Because after sitting through it, it wasn’t great, but this was nothing compared to Harvey or even the storm about a month ago.
In some ways I’d like to pretend I don’t have animosity toward northerners. But in reality I find them cleverly annoying. Opinions about A/C and hurricanes and general uninformed opinions regarding anything below the Mason-Dixon create some tender animosity. It’s the lack of trying to understand, instead of just putting a northeast context on everything and pretending it’s all the same.
Which leads me to he hurricane coverage. I’ve talked some before about how much I love weather. In another life I should’ve been a meteorologist. And with a lack of live-streaming storm chasers last night (and very little local coverage outside of YouTube), I was forced to rely on the big boys. The Weather Channel and Fox Weather were my go-tos for hours. And as I watched, I realized how little I could stand northerners reporting on the hurricanes.
Don’t get me wrong there was some good coverage. One guy on The Weather Channel mentioned Clear Lake by name (he used to live there). This was after the reporter on the ground pronounced Kemah as “quinoa”. And a Fox Weather reporter was from the area she was reporting on (I think her name was Britta). This was between the anchors fetishizing the amount of damage about to occur.
I get that news stations are incentivized into pulling the “if it bleeds, it leads” style of news. And maybe I’m being unfair because they’re trying to warn people into being safe. But remember when Joker came out and it seemed like the media wanted there to be a shooting? They were begging for it in a sadistic kind of way. The same applies to tornadoes. I was having flashbacks to thinking “are these people evil” as the news begs the heavens to open up and bring even more deadly wind.
I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but as I’m writing this The Weather Channel is talking about how there’s so much destruction and they’ve just never seen anything like this. Maybe they need to pay attention to more hurricanes. I mean, just look at Jamaica last week. I loved through Harvey and watched the damage; the news didn’t need to beg for something to happen there. It was just happening. Maybe this is more a commentary on the news in general, but they’re all located in New York City.
There were also other things that occurred that were annoying. These include:
1. A reporter talking about power outages in Tarrant County at 7 am (Tarrant County is in Fort Worth).
2. Calling the hurricane history making. Again, as someone who lived through Harvey I would not call it that. People are going to get damage and lost homes, but this isn’t Harvey level. It’s unfortunate but not history making.
3. Extending Galveston to Texas City.
4. Talking about devastating winds as the trees around them shake at like 15 mph.
5. Said “look at this damage” and it was a drain hole with water around it, a neighborhood street flooded below the curb, and the partially flooded backyard of a townhome.
6. A reporter asking a man if he would consider leaving the coast as storms continue. He said he loved the area and wants to keep living there. A misunderstanding of why people live on the coast.
I was half expecting this to occur.
There are probably other cases, but it’s the lack of tact that irks me. It’s gauche in many ways. It lacks the personal touch. That’s why, of course, you should watch local stations. At least they have the geographical and historical context to put what’s happening in perspective. And since they live in the community, they’re now jowling it up begging for more damage.
Again, this is just me expressing myself since there’s not much to do today. But for a long time I’ve believed Houston and the “Third Coast” to be the most misunderstood part of the country. And hurricane coverage, a natural disaster, only perpetuated that.
Hopefully everyone is staying safe. While hurricanes can suck, Beryl has been not as bad as others. To paraphrase what one Galveston resident said, “this is pretty good compared to what I’ve seen.” Be well. I’ll write about sports again.
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