<p>Kei-o-lei, Yes, apparently it is easy for some people to make light of things and laugh about it when it is not directly involving them. I doubt there are many people making light of any Florida hurricanes. I think the OP probably meant well in starting the thread. It’s a couple of posters that have come after that I just think have been pretty insensitive.</p>
<p>I think the reason people may be making light of Irene is the way the media hyped it. Yes it was serious. But anyone that watched the storm track could see it was going to hit places other than NYC. But the media made that the focus of their stories - forget Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the Jersey side of the Hudson River, it’s heading for New York. The reporter that reported from Battery Park for about 3 days was particularly helpful. One day in the sun, the next day in the overcast and the final day in the rain. I feel for everyone in Vermont and upstate New York - the overflowing rivers are a complete disaster. But the problems associated with shutting down the NYC subway for 24 hours - please…</p>
<p>I would just like to add…If anyone would like to come over and help us clean up after this disaster hit us feel free to do so. We have a mess that will take us at least a month to recover from. We have not even had an insurance rep visit us yet to start the ball rolling. Everything in our basement is gone regarding machines that run our house. We dragged most things up the flight of stairs the day before and spent the following day getting rid of flooring and sheetrock. Now we have to deal with mold. This thread is NOT funny for those of us working our butts off cleaning up after Irene hit us hard.</p>
<p>I didn’t sense any intentional disregard for those that are suffering. It’s just the nature of the news. </p>
<p>As an example …</p>
<p>We are suffering from a drought of almost epic proportions in Texas. Horses are starving and being abandoned by the hundreds (shelters are full and turning them away), lakes are drying up (stock tanks are already gone) , town water supply is going dry and water is going to have to be trucked in, brush fires raging everyday taking barns and houses (30 homes yesterday at Possum Kingdom Lake alone), 80 days over 100 so far, and the average high for August has been 105.3. But if you ain’t got 60 head of livestock to feed daily, aren’t responsible for guaranteeing they have good water to drink, and aren’t watching the lake you built and stocked 16 years ago go dry…well, I’m just not sure the rest of the country really “gets it”. Yeah, it’s not the Horn of Africa, but it ain’t any fun.</p>
<p>I hope everybody gets a break. Oh, and pray/shake a stick/chant for rain in Texas. We’d appreciate it. ;)</p>
<p>momma-three, Our adjuster will not be visiting until tomorrw afternoon but I have spoken to him on the phone. If you have flood insurance, you should be able to get started on repairs even though you have not met with the adjuster. The main thing is to prevent further damage and keep receipts for any work done. Good luck!</p>
<p>So sorry to hear about all the troubles in Texas,curmudgeon. I hope things get better soon!</p>
<p>CNN is covering the wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma right now. Hopefully, there will not be threads started about harmless tales of woe from the drought. Just sayin.</p>
<p>The weather channel predicts TOO much rain may fall in S Texas soon- flood potential. Too many people prayed for you? Or the rain gods are angry? or… </p>
<p>We need humor to get through tough times. </p>
<p>Interesting how a tornado can hurt few, kill one and damage few dwellings but have potentially large economic impact. There was a long, wide tornado this month in northern Wisconsin that flattened a huge number of trees. The ones on roads were pushed off into the right of way. Now need to be removed before winter snow plowing. These trees can be harvested, if done before insects et al damage the wood, but a sudden influx of so much lumber could depress market prices and affect those in the industry. These rural counties don’t have much of a tax base to pay for cleanup either. Reasons to have a state DNR (dept of natural resources)- who would have thought of major consequences of selling downed trees…</p>
<p>I can’t blame those in hurricane prone areas for their attitudes towards Irene, nor those from earthquake prone areas for theirs. New Yorkers, and the east coast in general, often forget that the center of their world is not the center of all for the rest of us, even if it has a large influence. It is worse though when you are not used to those events and never needed awareness or preparations.</p>
<p>There’s a relatively small wildfire in NE WI that is requiring a lot of water- the ground is peat and the fire is smoldering underground… always thought peat was only in Briton. We have had above normal rainful all months this year until a dry August.</p>
<p>People pay attention when it is them or unusual. NYC has tons of people, as does the rest of the east coast. Bet we would hear more about Texas problems if the Weather Channel were located there (I get tired of hearing about Atlanta- it is not the epicenter of my world). The city Texans aren’t suffering as much as the rural areas, despite the extreme heat so I suspect the “human interest”/viewer interest isn’t there. There will be a national impact on food prices I suspect (cattle, not the horses…).</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, Curmudgeon and UMDAD all gave some sober and clear-headed perspective on this thread, which apparently simply went over other folks heads or was intentionally ignored. If someone’s point of view disturbs you, why read on?</p>
<p>LOL at Wis75…“I get tired of hearing about Atlanta…”</p>
<p>Lake Washington, I hear you but I don’t think this thread went over other people’s heads.I do think in the future , for anybody starting a thread they seem to find humorous, they may want to, in the midst of their humorous take on things , acknowledge that there could be some real suffering going on out there. It goes a long way. All the best.</p>
<p>Another thought I’ve had on this -It reminds me of comedy/humour in general . It might be one thing to comment on something you may think is funny regarding your own disaster,race ,ethnicity,body type, etc. The tone can change if you are commenting on things that don’t directly relate to you. Maybe some of us just need to lighten up , who knows? As I said in an earlier post, Lake Washington, I don’t think there was any bad intent at all with your original post. I think the thread has definitely just touched a nerve with those of us in the midst of problems with Irene.</p>
<p>I was thinking the same thing, sevmom–if my friends and family and all the other folk with trees through their houses, water up to their eyeballs, and losses worse than that, want to joke, that’s fine. On the other hand, I don’t suppose anyone in Tuscaloosa or Joplin Missouri would like to hear others joking about tornadoes, and I’m guessing there was not that much comedy in those places in the first days. I certainly didn’t hear anyone joking about the lighter side of tornadoes. But this is the Northeast, and I guess we’re just supposed to be thicker skinned. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t see this a NYC phenomena, one way or another. NY was right to brace for the storm; it was headed right at them. The fact that they fared well despite that is not a reason to belittle precautions–even with the sensational weather tracking (thank you NOAA), we still don’t have the tools to absolutely predict the results from one place to the next. If some news presenter was too NY-centric for you, follow a different one. Maybe it’s because I don’t watch TV news, but I heard plenty info for my area and others places before, during, and after the storm. I think you have to be looking for reasons to dislike NYC to think most folks thought it was all about one city.</p>
<p>If you know the geography of the NYC metro area, watching the track it was pretty obvious that it was going to impact NYC, how badly was hard to tell. Battery Park City in lower Manhattan is a miniscule target.</p>
<p>In Connecticut, we are very badly damaged. The shoreline towns are devastated with destroyed/condemned houses that were built before the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. Two of those are in my neighborhood. So '38 didn’t get them … but Irene did. I have seen storm shutters that were “designed for a Category 4 storm” crumpled like tinfoil with the windows behind them now bits of glass in the street. </p>
<p>And that’s just the shoreline. Inland, the tree damage and resulting power outages are incredible. My town is still 2/3 out of power today, Wednesday, at 5:30 pm. We are not the worst. The outage map is still showing lots of black towns – over 80% out. </p>
<p>We’re hearing a bit about Vermont and the Catskills. Not much about Jersey or the Carolinas. And I am certain that those places have some pretty serious damage to talk about as well.</p>
<p>So sorry to hear about the damage ,cnp55. We have an early 1920’s house that has major crawlspace damage but luckily the water did not reach the first floor. We avoided that by inches. It is sad to see what is going on to many folks out there.</p>
<p>I live on the East coast but go to Notre Dame (GO IRISH!). A week after I left, the earthquake, hurricane, and a few tornadoes hit. All of my family and friends were freaking out, but I escaped the apocalyptic weather just in time :)</p>
<p>Well, you certainly dodged a bullet then, NavyBlueNinja. Hopefully, none of your East Coast friends or family are having to deal with any damage without you. That is hit or miss on the East Coast as to who has had problems. Have fun at Notre Dame.</p>
<p>D says New Haven (at least the area she travels which is fairly broad) looks pretty good. She took her Xterra to the Nissan dealer, then went to babysit in Hamden (sp?) …not so good. Lots of residential street impassable from downed trees. </p>
<p>Texas drought made CBS national news. PKLake fire up to 39 homes now. They lost 70-80 earlier in the year.</p>
<p>Road trip to VT today; flood damage extreme. Houses covered in mud and trees/brush; signs asking for volunteers to help with clearing the mess. On the funnier side: sis in NYC metro area prepped hard for the storm including filling empty large water bottles with water. Everything off the deck and off the basement floor. After the storm the only damage came from leaking water bottles. Yeah, lol at them. Now to help out in VT!</p>
<p>^^^It’s pretty mixed. My grandparents, who live at the beach and were evacuated, were allowed back right after the eye of the storm passed, and the island was completely fine. On the other hand, my family has been without power since Saturday and our basement started flooding. :/</p>