Well, with the exception of a few flooded (very minor) garages, and
a few hours of the street being flooded enough to kayak around the
neighborhood, and some pretty wicked winds in the morning, the impact
of Ernesto was very minor. We had a lot off rain ~11 inches in 3 days,
and wind gusts to 38MPH. That was pretty much the experience for the
area.
What I found interesting, was the reports I got from my family on
the West coast. We got calls from everyone, but no one called on
Friday, the reason… “Oh we wanted to give you time to get back home
after the Hurricane evacuations” They were all, surprised when I
laughed. Why did I laugh, because in a city of over 400,000 there were
between 30 and 100 evacuations, all were because of localized flooding,
and to the best of my knowledge none were mandatory.
Well in typical media hype hysteria, a Tropical Storm that was a
Hurricane for about 18 hours a week earlier, was still being reported
as a Hurricane a week later. After the 2005 tropical season, I’m
betting that so many stations invested heavily in some type of tropical
package, that they are making a big deal out of every tropical
disturbance no matter how minor. In my opinion, this is the worst thing
that could happen, creating artificial hype for something that is
really a non event. Once again the general public will begin to ignore
official warning statements, and not do what is needed when a threat
does truly exist.
For example, this week as Florence was developing in the Atlantic,
and the initial path was pointing to the mid-Atlantic region, the
teasers on the news was the potential impact of Florence on our area.
This was when the storm was at least 10 days out, five day track errors
were about 300NM, I guess all that mattered was that line pointing our
way. Then there was the simple fact that just about every model on the
planet said that Florence was going to turn to the North, and not make
U.S. landfall, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Simple fact of the matter is if you want the facts go to the National Hurricane Center
