When Did Irene Stop Being a Hurricane?

I don't understand why anyone would mod the above article flamebait. The fact is that this was a tremendously destructive storm, because of all the moisture that it carried. I'm right there with people who want facts to be reported accurately, but the degree of preparation that went on before this storm was entirely appropriate. Should New York City have kept running the subway lines? The tunnels flooded! Should those people in Groton, CT, who boarded up their windows not have bothered? Some of their neighbors' houses were washed away. What about the damage on the Jersey Shore, and in North Carolina? Hype?

In my town alone, with a population of about 14k, there were 30 swift water rescues during the flooding. Houses were carried downriver. Propane tanks, hissing gas, were carried downriver. A young woman was swept away downriver, and drowned, two towns west of here.

What is amazing about this storm is that despite how serious it was, and despite all the damage that was done, so few lives were lost. Many towns in Vermont flooded, and some can only be reached by class 3 roads that are barely passable because the main road and the alternate have washed out, and the road that _is_ passable has two-foot waves in it.

We were shocked by the ferocity of the flooding. Yesterday morning I foolishly thought that the danger had passed, and this was a flash in the pan. I had no idea what that giant bank of orange on the radar over the Green Mountains meant. I'm really glad someone did, and that people got warnings in time, and weren't in the path of the flood waters when they came roaring down Whetstone Brook. I'm really glad that low-lying trailer parks were successfully evacuated, and that we are not reading about the tragic loss of life that could have occurred, but instead about people wondering when they can go back to assess the damage.

So if there was some scientific inaccuracy in the exact name that was given to the type of storm this was, I guess that's of some academic interest, but if this storm had gotten a different name, and that had resulted in less preparation, that would have really sucked. Some of my neighbors would be dead now.

I think this is the point that the parent was trying to convey. It's not flamebait. If there's a problem to correct, let's make sure that correcting it doesn't result in less hype the next time a storm like this comes through.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/UdIwZ70XeCc/When-Did-Irene-Stop-Being-a-Hurricane

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