Hurricane Sandy - "Perfect Storm"

[Balbi]

Im awaiting Romnoid to start accusing the Obama administration of scaremongering.

 

[phildwyer]

Yeah,a city's worth of buildings can return to normal use just hours after they've been flooded.

Dude, I'm here. Pretty much everything in Manhattan is fine. You are talking bollocks. You are believing the television. Do not believe it. It lies.

 

[wiskey]

The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night”​

New York City transport director Joseph Lhota

I'm sure bits of NY, probably the tourist facing and iconic bits will be up and running but lets be honest - it IS going to take time to get over this.

 

[gabi]

Im awaiting Romnoid to start accusing the Obama administration of scaremongering.

I would actually agree with Mitt on that one. This isn't exactly New Orleans.

 

[phildwyer]

Im awaiting Romnoid to start accusing the Obama administration of scaremongering.

I could be wrong, but I doubt he will.

It is in the interests of the governing class to keep the population in a state of intermittent panic. Furthermore it is in the interests of the media to whip up panic at every opportunity, and no politician will want to cross the media.

Also, as we've seen several times on this thread, anyone who points out such home truths immediately becomes vulnerable to the kind of cheap moralism propagated by idiots like Temper Tantrum. "Oh how dare you say it was exaggerated when this person was killed/ that building collapsed/ that area flooded, you must be a heartless beast" etc etc. Such vile tactics can be very effective, and Romney won't want to be on the end of them.

But the truth of the matter is that scaremongering was rife, as it frequently is in the Western media. Wise people will ask what interests it serves.

 

[Balbi]

Since when did Mitt actually bother to apply logic, even your form of it?

 

[Crispy]

But the truth of the matter is that scaremongering was rife, as it frequently is in the Western media. Wise people will ask what interests it serves.

Advertisers

 

[Greebo]

Precisely. They go into hysterics over here about the slightest potential threat to their well-being. Remember "bird flu" and all that--these diseases were going to kill everyone and destroy everything too.

Americans are the best and noblest people in the world. But they really need to develop a stiff upper lip.

Everything will be completely back to normal. Not tomorrow, but today.

Both a tiny bit oversimplified, don't you think?

 

[gabi]

Meanwhile, in Haiti, 52 victims of the same storm are buried (if they're lucky). Not one mention of this on 30 pages of this thread.

Classy.

 

[phildwyer]

Advertisers

And the media outlets who take their money. If people think their city is about to be flooded, they're going to tune in to the news. Higher viewing figures means higher prices for ad-space, which means higher profits for the News Corps.

I'd also argue that there's a deeper, less obvious, more ideological need to keep people in a state of fear. You see it more clearly in the USA than in the UK, especially after 9/11, but it seems to be an engrained feature of the Western media.

Certainly there's an interesting comparison to be made with the other countries with whose media I'm familiar: Mexico and Turkey. Repression in those countries takes a different, more overt and obvious (and physical) form than it does in the West. As a result, the media there tend to underplay disaster stories--even socio-political disasters like Operation Sledgehammer (Turkey) or the Drug War (Mexico). The Western press would basically explode if they had to cover such stories in their own countries.

 

[ferrelhadley]

Christ. The next time hundreds of people die in a flood in Pakistan or something I expect at least equal coverage from the media. I almost puked this morning listening to a 'volunteer' being interviewed on the beeb.

Yet when there has been massive flooding out there it has been near impossible to raise any interest on Urban 75

Right now in the US there is a much more serious extreme weather event,

One that is bringing hunger to hundreds of millions if not billions from high food costs... yet barely a squeak.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9989dc80-d1c5-11e1-badb-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2AmJsLh7B

The world is facing a new food crisis as the worst US drought in more than 50 years pushes agricultural commodity prices to record highs.
Corn and soyabean prices surged to record highs on Thursday, surpassing the peaks of the 2007-08 crisis that sparked food riots in more than 30 countries. Wheat prices are not yet at record levels but have rallied more than 50 per cent in five weeks, exceeding prices reached in the wake of Russia’s 2010 export ban.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Meanwhile, in Haiti, 52 victims of the same storm are buried (if they're lucky). Not one mention of this on 30 pages of this thread.

Classy.

Funnily enough I was just coming in to mention that as I and I suspect others on this thread have just seen this reported.

So please take your sanctamonious bullshit elsewhere. Yes by all means criticise the media for their lack of objectivity but do not think that people on this thread or in general care less about one set of victims and people suffering than others. Because we are quite able to feel for many thanks.

 

[gabi]

I think 30 pages of wailing about the subway being shut and cancelled flights in NYC would suggest otherwise

 

[Greebo]

I think 30 pages of wailing about the subway being shut and cancelled flights in NYC would suggest otherwise

Oh get over yourself - of course people are going to gripe about what affects them more directly. It doesn't mean that they don't realise that others are in an even worse situation.

 

[wiskey]

I'm not sure you can arrive on a thread like this and read it back and have a go about the content - it's one of those threads that develops as an event happens . . . I have only learned about Haiti in the last hour.

 

[Balbi]

I think 30 pages of wailing about the subway being shut and cancelled flights in NYC would suggest otherwise

What a lovely piece of misrepresentation. I found Rutita's post about the other places Sandy hit, with links, quite helpful.

It's here, by the way http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/hurricane-sandy-perfect-storm.301261/#post-11647457

But thanks for your second coming online messiah, otherwise we'd not know to feel bad about using resources available to us to monitor a once in a century storm event hitting a major city.

Postscript: I also didn't realise that one thread on urban is obviously the sum total of the collected knowledge and research of its posters and of their characters. Shall we go back through your posting history and start drawing classy conclusions. No. Because it's fucking dumb.

 

[Greebo]

I'm not sure you can arrive on a thread like this and read it back and have a go about the content - it's one of those threads that develops as an event happens . . . I have only learned about Haiti in the last hour.

FWIW Haiti and Cuba were briefly mentioned on the early evening news yesterday.

 

[scifisam]

Meanwhile, in Haiti, 52 victims of the same storm are buried (if they're lucky). Not one mention of this on 30 pages of this thread.

Classy.

Actually, it has been mentioned a couple of times. But I guess all there is to say there are things like "oh shit," and "those poor bloody people." Nobody's going to argue about whether those people dying is a good or bad thing, nobody's going to claim the hurricane there was overhyped, and it's pretty bloody obvious why so many have died there. There's no debate to be had.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

I think 30 pages of wailing about the subway being shut and cancelled flights in NYC would suggest otherwise

Really? That doesn't show that they might be thinking generally about people affected by such things? Or are we really going to get into a "My disastor is bigger than yours" scenario. Because, you know what, I don't really know anyone in New York but I can sympathise with them in much the same way I can with people in Haiti or in Pakistan.

My sympathy is not limited in the way you suggest and I don't think other people's is either.

 

[Reno]

I think 30 pages of wailing about the subway being shut and cancelled flights in NYC would suggest otherwise

Some people here are personally affected by the hurricane hitting New York, unlike with Haiti. I think we are entitled to our "wailing".

 

[Balbi]

Gabi fails to tell the difference between events which have happened, and reporting of those and the nature of events which are yet to come and the collective power of the internet to live report.

Or basically, stop being ridiculously reductionist and allow for the complexity of situations to influence your opinions. Otherwise you're a beep of a morse code machine in amongst cloud computing.

 

[editor]

He's been doing CNN evening shows for over a year now.

As if the hurricane wasn't bad enough for Americans.

 

[silverfish]

Some people here are personally affected by the hurricane hitting New York, unlike with Haiti. I think we are entitled to our "wailing".

yes its spoiled your holiday

 

[Reno]

yes its spoiled your holiday

At least you have a firm grasp on the obvious.

 

[boohoo]

My brother, his wife, my three year old nieces and one week old nephew are in Brooklyn and we are waiting to hear that everything is ok for them. We have felt quite concerned.

 

[Balbi]

My brother, his wife, my three year old nieces and one week old nephew are in Brooklyn and we are waiting to hear that everything is ok for them. We have felt quite concerned.

Get Phil to go round and check, he says everything's fine.

 

[ferrelhadley]

My brother, his wife, my three year old nieces and one week old nephew are in Brooklyn and we are waiting to hear that everything is ok for them. We have felt quite concerned.

Good luck to them but they are most likely fine.

 

[phildwyer]

Get Phil to go round and check, he says everything's fine.

Just been out for a wander round Midtown. Everything really is fine. Light rain, subway closed, streets quiet, but everything else completely normal.

To put this in perspective: the latest reports are giving a death toll of 11. As you may (or may not) remember, Turkey quite recently suffered an earthquake in which 30,000 people died. This was in Istanbul, the major city. I can honestly say that there was less than a quarter of the media coverage of that disaster in Turkey than there has been of this storm in the USA. And that's not to mention how little it was reported in the UK, compared to this relatively insignificant event.

Now, I've no doubt that the Turkish government and media had their reasons for de-emphasizing the tragedy, just as the Western press has its reasons for exaggerating this one. But let no-one doubt that they are exaggerating. In fact, this is an object lesson in media distortion.

 

[dylans]

Meanwhile, in Haiti, 52 victims of the same storm are buried (if they're lucky). Not one mention of this on 30 pages of this thread.

Classy.

200.000 are homeless in Haiti with emergency shelter available to only 17.000. The worse humanitarian disaster may still be ahead as crops have been destroyed, the economy is in tatters and disease is spreading. That poor country never gets a break.

The UN is warning that flooding and unsanitary conditions could lead to a sharp increase in cases of cholera, while aid workers are worried that extensive crop damage will mean that food prices will rise.
Extensive damage to crops throughout the southern third of the country, as well as the high potential for a surge in cases of cholera and other water-borne diseases, could mean Haiti will see the deadliest effects of Sandy in the coming days and weeks ...
"The economy took a huge hit," Laurent Lamothe, prime minister, told Reuters news agency.
"Most of the agricultural crops that were left from Hurricane Isaac [in August] were destroyed during Sandy," he said, "so food security will be an issue."
Sandy also destroyed banana crops in eastern Jamaica as well as decimating the coffee crop in eastern Cuba.

 

[Balbi]

Thanks for that Phil, and from the ridiculous to the sublime here's Don with the weather.