Storm diary (continued)

Sure, it's a matter of appearance rather than reality, but Governor Cuomo conveys the appearance of a mealy-mouthed bureaucrat. (He's surrounded here by National Guardsmen because he was announcing a doubling of the Guard presence this weekend to deal with . . . well, whatever.)

by Ken

Apologies for not mustering a more reasonable type of post. I understand better now, now that I'm going through it, how/why Floridians go into all-storm all-the-time mode from the time a big storm begins to take aim on the mainland, even when for the foreseeable future there's no new "news" and nothing more to be done in anticipation, at least nothing that we haven't already been informed about a few zillion times in the days before.


As I pointed out last night, even then we were a full 24 hours, if not more, away from the arrival of the brunt of the storm in the tri-state Greater New York area. Today we've watched Irene attack the Carolinas, and as I write, the New Jersey coast is beginning to feel Irene's presence more directly. We've been told that the storm winds have lowered noticeably, and don't seem likely to pick up again, but we've also been told that the size of the expected storm surge is "locked in." (Apparently storm surges don't have the flexibility of, say, slimy pols who can be coaxed to a more "reasonable" point of view with a modest infusion of cash. Okay, maybe not so modest if it's, say, an influential senator or a House committee or important subcommittee chairman you're buying.)

Now in New York City it's being estimated that the worst of Irene is likely to hit us between midnight and 3am, setting up the worst conditions on the ground for later Sunday morning, 8am-ish. The winds may proves less ferocious than they were yesterday but are still pretty hefty, and are being talked about in turns of even scarier "gust" numbers. And even if in the city itself we get "only" 5-10 inches of rain, that's still a lot of rain, in an area that's already saturated from a very wet August, meaning that the ground isn't likely to be able to absorb much new water. Also, as I saw one TV talking head protest to her Expert Meteorologist Guy, there's quite a difference between five inches of rain and ten inches -- though I think at that point she was talking about the difference between six and 12 inches. Indeed there is, but EMG assured her that no, there are too many variables for us to have any idea where within that range we're going to fall until the rain finishes falling.

So here we all still are on a day that outwardly has all the hallmarks of a perfectly normal rainy Saturday in the city -- except of course that nothing is "normal." There hasn't been any public transport for a third of a day now, so those of us who depend on public transport to get us anywhere beyond walking range clearly aren't going anywhere. And of course much of the talk on the tube is still of the mandatory evacuations in the city and coastal localities from New Jersey to Connecticut. From what I've seen on TV, some people in the areas subject to "mandatory" evacuation evacuated and some didn't. As officials point out when pressed by the TV talking heads, there really isn't any way that they can force people to leave.

ONE OBVIOUS NOTE TO BE APPLIED TO THE NEXT BIG STORM

One obvious note, in line with what I wrote last night about storm preparedness normally developing in reaction to the rightness or wrongness of the response to the last big storm: If it turns out that the preparations ordered by our government leaders, based on the worst-case scenarios, was disproportionate to what the storm actually delivers, you can expect that the next time we're presented with such a drastic prospect, even fewer people will take the threat seriously. And there's nothing to be done about it. How can you blame those leaders for planning for the totally realistic prospect of those worst-case scenarios? And the fact is that they're clearly influenced by the city's drastic underanticipation of last December's blizzard.

MEANWHILE, THERE'S SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR ENFORCED INACTIVITY

It's a luxury for me, since these days I find my time so heavily overscheduled. Finally I'm making dents in the pile-up on my DVR -- finally sorting out, for example, which still-unwatched In Plain Sight and Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes are stored there and which ones I'll have to try to track down online. Armed with that information, I've begun attacking the backlog, and have enjoyed beginning to catch up with the recently completed In Plain Sight season. At some point I'll probably have something to say about all this.

POSSIBLY FINAL SATURDAY-NIGHT STORM NOTES

(1) I just double-checked the MAS website and the "tour hotline" ("in case of severe weather") to see if there's news of my scheduled walking tour of the Tompkins Square neighborhood of the East Village tomorrow afternoon, and found no news. Perhaps tomorrow? I guess it's academic, since with the subways and buses idled, there's no way I could get there anyway. (For that matter, tour leader Francis Morrone would normally be taking the subway into Manhattan from Park Slope, Brooklyn.)

(2) I caught some of Governor Cuomo's public appearance today, and boy, does he not inspire leaderly confidence. This is almost a totally matter of perception rather than reality. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, for example, oozed authoritativeness in those crisis situations, and I never felt that that authority corresponded with reality. Mayor Mike too commands a certain amount of authority. Governor Andrew, by contrast, even while taking ownership of yesterday's decision to shut down our public transport system today at noon, sounded like a mealy-mouthed bureaucrat.


SUNDAY UPDATE: FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH --
TODAY'S MAS TOMPKINS SQUARE TOUR IS POSTPONED

I just noticed that tour leader Francis Morrone offered the above info in a comment this morning. Thanks, Francis!

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