The media blows everything out of perspective… and here they go this time with Hurricane Earl.
It’s not the end of the world out there. It’s not Armageddon. You don’t need to stock up on water, food, radios, batteries, update your will, and prepare for a holocaust. It’s wind… some gusts… it’s rain… nothing we’re not used to living in Halifax.
So I think the public needs to take a lesson from Public Enemy’s song “Don’t Believe the Hype.” Don’t give me that “Juan” excuse that all Nova Scotians claim was the be all and end all of weather events. —Earl_Blew_Goats
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2010.
If there is any possibility of losing power due to the weather, then I’d rather be prepared. As for the 2000 or so residence’s who where still without power monday evening, I bet they appreciate the water and food and extra batteries.
People are free to react as they choose of course, but I agree with the OP. There is a strong componant of manipulation involved when it comes to this sort of thing. By two days before the storm hit there could be no doubt that the storm would make landfall somewhere in Nova Scotia with a strength constituting at the very least a weak Cat. 1 Hurricane or a strong tropical storm. In a province that is barely 350 miles wide, the shear size of the storm meant that we would feel its effects significantly, provincewide. Then why all the humming and hawing about the minutiae of the storm at all? This is just done to stir people up, plain and simple. Fear to promote consumption.
see my above post for a detailed response.
Tell that to the 1,000 people who still do not have power across the province!
You mean that pizza guy I shotgunned wasn’t a zombie?
Oooooooh Shit! My Bad.
This bitch is easy to write after the storm OP. Being prepared for something that could have been worse makes all kinds of sense.
It was my first hurricane, so I thought I’d rather be safe than sorry.
You’re stupid, OP. It’s not going to hurt anyone to be prepared. I think most people were aware that the storm could be a non-event. But, in the case it was not, you may as well be prepared.
Hindsight is 20/20. People with your attitude become a burden to their friends, neighbours and the local authorities when shit really hits the fan. Glad to hear that hip hop song lyrics are part of your decision process when it comes to being prepared for a potential crisis, but eventually you will drain that iPod battery completely. What will you do then, J-Rock?
Juan did turn NS into a bunch of pussies when it comes to weather. But yes, better safe than sorry…
Especially since my shed blew over :@
Roger that. SOBova and I figured Juan would be just another stormy Sunday. We even slept through it. 9 days without power and let me tell you, cold showers, ramen noodles warmed over a spirit cooker and trying to get news updates on a broken walkman stuck on Q-104 lost it’s “back to the garden” charm real quick. And since since our MLA probably pawned his generator for online poker money I’m definitely of the “Better to have and not need” School of Thought.
No Zombie outbreak, though. Disappointing.
OP ….is that you LS ??
I lost power for about 10 hours, this time.
For Juan I lost power for 13 days !
So I had no water. Actually I had drinking water….but none to shower in or do dishes, but most importantly none to FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET.
So being prepared, getting a second flashlight, bringing home gas for my Bar-B-Q, fuel for a generator was IMo not a waste of time, nor was it to do with media hype.
I just didn’t want to throw my freezers contents in the garbage this time, & I wanted to be able to take a dump & be able to flush it !
If you want to enjoy the storm, spend the night out in the rain in a 96 degree hot tub.
let me tell ya… that is how to spend any tropical storm.
It’s a task keeping all the leaves outta the tub, but it worth it.
Earl proved one thing: Nova Scotians can’t be pleased and there are a whole bunch of idiots and whiners here. They bitched their fool heads off that there was no warning about Juan, which is complete b.s. by the way. I watched the warnings about it for days and was baffled by all the people completely ignoring the warnings! ignoring them and not having access to them are 2 different things! So now the media are trying to placate people by giving them tons of warning and everyone bitches that the storm didn’t warrant all the notice. Are you freaking kidding me? Anyone who hoped the hurricane would have been more destructive needs to buy a freaking video game or watch a shitty, destructive movie – real life doesn’t need to be like that. They’ve clearly never lost a loved one or a home in a natural disaster! Do you want to tell all the Katrina survivors that you wish we would have had a worse hurricane? Idiots, I say.
My other bitch is with respect to all the whinging about losing power. Get over your fool selves! Millions of people in the world live without power every single day of their lives. You sound like a bunch of entitled, obnoxious, impatient a-holes complaining about not having power for a day or 2. And I’m no fan of NSPower in general, but I would say that going from over 200,000 people without power to less than 1500 in less than 2 days is pretty freaking good. There was plenty of warning so people could be prepared. If they still lost their refrigerator/freezer contents, then tough luck and shut the hell up!
The OP has a valid point….the media loves blowing things out of proportion. maybe they get kickbacks from the grocery stores on water, soup, and batteries.
Assuming the OP is correct and the media does “blow everything out of perspective” I am forced to ask what else the media has blown out of perspective in the last ten years. Are we in the grip of a manipulative corporate mass media pushing a hidden agenda or are we not? We may be with respect to a multitude of other events, but not, I think, with respect to hurricane warnings in Nova Scotia.
Personally, I don’t think “the media” made any mistakes in calling this weather event. Considering the variables that go into projecting a hurricane track and forecast wind velocity I think the weather folks did pretty good.
I was without power for about ten hours, but having experienced Hurricane Juan after which I had no electricity for 7 days I was prepared this time for the worst.
Unfortunately, although a large swath of Dartmouth was sunk in inky blackness until late Saturday night, and there seemed to be a hint of chaos with the usual characters thinking “dead street lights at intersections” means the same thing as “no reason to stop”, and I did see some unusual characters lurching about in the dark, I was unable to put into action my personal Zombie Apocalypse survival plan. I was ready, though. Locked and loaded with a year’s supply of Twinkies in the back of my pickup.
We’ve been getting hurricanes forever, but juan really changed the game, OP. People were likely unprepared for Juan and don’t intend to have that happen again.
Kind of like the older folk who lived through the depression who hide their money under their mattresses instead of putting it into the bank.
I wasn’t really all that worried about Earl, but I did buy a case of drinking water and had a few extra batteries for flash lights on hand along with some matches and a full propane tank and some canned food and some extra bags of ice in the freezer to put in a cooler in case the power went out for any length of time.
Thankfully, I live on an awesome grid and my power almost never goes out, unlike the downtown grids. NGF’s power’s gone out like 10 times since I’ve lived in my current building, while mine’s gone out once, maybe?
Halichick…
while I agree with most of your post… we pay for the service of having power available….
and it goes out… a LOT. that’s why people complain.
their track record is worse than france this past summer.
I still don’t have cable/net working at home. I’m PAYING for it but it’s out and I get squat.
Should I be reimbursed for the lost time? yes…. will I be? no… so I bitch about it.
Was the OP in Halifax for Juan? I lost out on 4 days pay and didn’t shower for 3. Get fucked, asshole. I was prepared and am ready for the next ‘false alarm’. Don’t come knocking on my door looking for a warm bath or some french pressed italian roast, either.
Uhh, most hurricanes here are minor but I seem to remember a certain hurricane that left me and my family without power for about a week.. So yeah, when I heard Earl was coming I filled up a water jug and got out the flashlights and candles.. took me a whopping 2 minutes to do it.
Why is there always somebody that whines that the media overplayed an oncoming storm? I tell you why they overplay it, because when the warnings came for Juan, so many didn’t listen and a lot of people were stuck without the necessities to get them through the power outage, so now the media overdoes it for the knuckleheads who are likely to ignore it again. There’s nothing wrong with being ready, and if it turns out not to be that bad, well good, at least you didn’t have to suffer without food, water and electricity for a week. Sure the media hypes it up, but it’s the only way anyone will listen. If they just said, “possible hurricane coming on Saturday, be prepared”, and left it at that, would you pay attention? Probably not.
zZz- how do you get a reimbursement for power you didn’t use? It’s in NSP’s best interest to keep you in lights. If you have no electricity, you’re not consuming any power, and they’re not making any money off you. I don’t follow your logic.
umm, I think zZz is complaining about the cable (for which you usually pay monthly) so if i was without my cable or internet for one week of the 4 weeks in a month I am expected to pay for the full month, even though I only received service for only 3/4 of the month…. hardly seems fair
The problem of overplaying/hyping a storm is that after awhile people will become complacent (just look at the complaints already), and that when something major is really going to happen, people will ignore it. You can call it the “Crying Wolf Syndrome”. People should have emergency kits anyway in both home and auto regardless. But after hearing time and time again of eminent disaster and nothing happens, people will zone out. So reporting that a storm is coming and take the usual precautions is ok but to to go on about it is plain fear mongering and unneeded.
Oops, you’re right. I’m so used to NSP getting the flack for outages, I didn’t clue in to what zZz actually wrote. Sorry zZz.
Just apply what I said to whoever will complain about NSP, you know someone will.