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I've come to this forum to explain my dissatisfaction with how Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene was handled in the United States in comparison to gulf coast storms. I just feel like those two storms, occurring in successive previous years were given extreme media coverage in comparison to gulf coast storms such as Hurricane Isaac. Plaquemines Parish was devestated by the storm but hardly a sole would know. However because Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene were hitting New York, it was a huge news event. Irene was very minor and Sandy was treated almost like another Katrina.
I guess what I am trying to say is it is frustrating being from the gulf coast and when a storm hits it doesn't really matter because they are "supposed" to hit us, but when tropical storm hits New York, it is the end of the world.
Do you agree or disagree with this. I mean no harm to any of the victims of Irene and Sandy, and feel terrible for them.
NYC is far less prepared for hurricanes than any Gulf Coast city, but I agree about the Northeastern bias, or as I call it the "East Coast bias". The media outlets usually stick to the East Coast and Chicago with occasional forays to other eastern cities (such as Minneapolis and Tampa) and the West Coast. Look on the bright side: at least they cover it when storms hit the Gulf Coast. When a severe blizzard hits Wyoming they give it about as much coverage as they give a light shower in Chicago.
Ummm, perhaps some stats will make you retract that statement. Sandy in the NorthEast was like Katrina down south. and Katrina got A LOT of attention.
There are building codes in place down south because of Tropical hits in the past, but in the northeast there arent codes like that and so the devastation is enhanced in the northeast.
Plus, how many tropical hits does the northeast have compared to down south? Point being, there's nothing to make a big deal about with a Cat 1 hurricane of 90mph winds down south where Palm trees sway and roofs hold together. Up here 80mph roofs come off, windows blow out, trees snap in half, rivers overflow from little rain and the coasts dont have levees to hold them back.
Ummm, perhaps some stats will make you retract that statement. Sandy in the NorthEast was like Katrina down south. and Katrina got A LOT of attention.
There are building codes in place down south because of Tropical hits in the past, but in the northeast there arent codes like that and so the devastation is enhanced in the northeast.
Plus, how many tropical hits does the northeast have compared to down south? Point being, there's nothing to make a big deal about with a Cat 1 hurricane of 90mph winds down south where Palm trees sway and roofs hold together. Up here 80mph roofs come off, windows blow out, trees snap in half, rivers overflow from little rain and the coasts dont have levees to hold them back.
I have to tell you, you sound really, really ignorant when you say Sandy was as bad as Katrina, nevermind the rest of your post. My family lost their house in Katrina, as did many, many more in Katrina. For God's sake, half the city flooded, parishes were destroyed. Gulfport and coastal Mississippi were totally wiped out. People weren't even allowed to live in the city for a short time afterward I believe. Yes, when a major American city gets totally destroyed, when thousands upon thousands are stuffed into the Superdome which had part of it's roof come off, when people had to stand on their rooftops just to hope to find help, when the population decreased as dramatically as New Orleans, and finally, when an entire region of the gulf coast is reduced to basically, it deserves a lot of attention. Yes, I feel bad for the Sandy victims, but for you to even compare the storms and their aftermath is extremely offensive. You are spitting on our faces.
And by the way, if you think all the gulf is nothing but a bunch a palm trees, you need to get your brain checked.
The total and complete ignorance of some people...
The Northeast is where the Bos-Wash corridor is and most importantly where NYC is. The fact of the matter is New York is probably the most important place to this country. When a natural disaster happens there, it is huge news. And it should be. It also should be news when they hit the gulf. But the gulf is not NYC. NYC is the capital of the world. I'm not saying that the bias is right, but I understand why it exists.
It's truely sad that some people are oblivious to what Sandy did in the NorthEast. When one is clueless about it I just shake my head and move on.
The population Sandy affected of 17.5 million alone should be the wake up call
Sandy's radius was 1000 miles vs Katrina of 415 miles.
Sandy's Poweroutages were 8.4 million vs 1.7 million with Katrina
Sandy affected 265,000 buinsesses vs Katrina of 18,000.
Sandy destroyed 651,000 homes vs Katrina of 214,000
Please. We can only help the blind so much if they think Sandy wasnt at least as bad or comparable.
The Northeast is where the Bos-Wash corridor is and most importantly where NYC is. The fact of the matter is New York is probably the most important place to this country. When a natural disaster happens there, it is huge news. And it should be. It also should be news when they hit the gulf. But the gulf is not NYC. NYC is the capital of the world. I'm not saying that the bias is right, but I understand why it exists.
I sense some tounge-in-cheek here (perhaps wrongly). I've lived in the West for 30 years and most of us don't consider NYC the center of the the universe. The exception are people who moved from there and still have one foot in the northeast.
As for the perceived bias in news coverage towards disasters in the northeast, it's not inconceivable to me given how much of the news media is headquartered there. I don't know whether Katrina or Sandy ultimately caused more damage (and really I'm not interested in debating which horrific event was worse), but there was a much deeper related story to Katrina involving mismanagement at all levels of government so I would expect more coverage of it in the long term.
I still don't think the OP was off-base about the "another hurricane hit the gulf coast, yawn" attitude. There was little coverage of hurricane Isaac nationally (by today's 24/7 standard for big news events) even though it caused an incredible amount of damage to the south coast of LA. I read a lot about it, but I was in Louisiana right after it hit.
It's truely sad that some people are oblivious to what Sandy did in the NorthEast. When one is clueless about it I just shake my head and move on.
The population Sandy affected of 17.5 million alone should be the wake up call
Sandy's radius was 1000 miles vs Katrina of 415 miles.
Sandy's Poweroutages were 8.4 million vs 1.7 million with Katrina
Sandy affected 265,000 buinsesses vs Katrina of 18,000.
Sandy destroyed 651,000 homes vs Katrina of 214,000
Please. We can only help the blind so much if they think Sandy wasnt at least as bad or comparable.
Another Northeastern with zero clue about Katrina, using select data to build his/her argument. Oh the power went out, you want a tissue? Why don't you tell a homeowner in Port Sulphur Louisiana or Bay St. Louis Mississippi that you are upset that your power went out. Or even someone sitting for days on end in the Louisiana Superdome before, during, and after the storm. We'll see how that works out for you.
You can throw all of your bogus data out there, act as pretentious and idiotic as you want, but at the end of the day, according to Wikipedia (see I give my sources), the damage of Katrina was at 108 billion with 1,833 confirmed deaths. Sandy? Well once again according to Wikipedia, only about 75 billion in damages and 285 deaths. That is about a 33 BILLION dollar difference in damages and a 1,548 fatality difference. You want to talk clueless? You want to shake your head and move on? Well, go ahead, you can do so when hiding behind your laptop. You can give me "power outages" and "radius" or whatever other stupid, stupid or irrelevant facts you want to give, but all I need are those two. I find the 1,548 fatality difference to be the most telling. However, if the northeastern is so much more populated, and with such "faulty" roofs, how come there was a 33 BILLION dollar difference.
And please, tell me your source for only 214,000 homes destroyed due to Katrina? I'd love to see where you found it.
But, you just sit on your perch in the northeast trying to tell yourself that because it happens to you, TO A NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES, it automatically means it is the worst thing to possibly happen.
You want to pay that extra 33 billion dollars? You seem to think it's no big deal. Come on. You sound like a moron.
I suggest you all look at the stats at the bottom of this short article. It is not even comparable. 1.2 million houses damaged to 380 thousand. You were just a little off there. Think before you post.
Hurricane Sandy affected a greater number of people in a much larger area than Katrina, but also caused less "peak damage" than Katrina, i.e. less people were affected by Katrina but those who were affected were affected to a greater degree.
Using a much more extreme example, compare an F-5 tornado to a Category 2 hurricane - the F-5 tornado has much higher wind speeds and obliterates the homes of 10 people, but the Cat 2 hurricane impacts a far greater number of people over a wider area, yet the average amount of damage is much less than the F-5 tornado? Which is the greater disaster? I'd argue the hurricane was, even though the peak damage was less. Sandy vs. Katrina is much less clear cut, but it's safe to say that Sandy was the East Coast's equivalent to Hurricane Katrina, in that it was the worst hurricane on record to hit the two respective regions and both had a horrendous impact - losing power is no picnic; just ask the people in Staten Island who were thrown back to the Dark Ages for months. Comparing the two and arguing which is worse is pointless and uninteresting to me. Besides, they weren't even the same kind of storm - Sandy was more like an extratropical superstorm with a tropical component, whereas Katrina was a true tropical cyclone. Katrina didn't produce any snow, whereas Sandy produced up to 3 feet.
The stats linked to show 1800 deaths from Katrina vs. 200 from Sandy. Sandy destroyed 400 000 homes. The 1.2 million figure that was mentioned also includes Rita and Wilma, so a huge chunk of those 1.2 million were not from Katrina - if Katrina was responsible for 1/3 of those homes, that puts Katrina's figure at approximately 400 000. That's probably a lowball figure, but considering the devastation from Wilma and Rita I don't imagine it could possibly be more than 2/3, so that puts the homes destroyed between 400 000 and 800 000 - more than Sandy, but still in the same league. The estimated cost of Katrina was $148 billion, whereas Sandy was estimated at $71 billion - the newest estimates put Sandy's damages higher, but still in the $70-80 billion range. Insured losses from Katrina were $49 billion, versus $20 billion from Sandy. Katrina knocked out power to 3 million homes, whereas Sandy knocked out power to 8 million homes.
So, Katrina had twice as much damage, a somewhat greater number of homes destroyed, 6 times as many deaths, affected only a quarter as many people, and only caused a third as many power outages. Weigh those statistics yourself and come up with your own answer. I'm not very interested myself.
What is more interesting to me is which was the greater meteorological event, and Sandy clearly wins on that front. Hurricanes like Katrina have moved through the region before - true, it was unprecedented in some respects, but meteorologically it was reasonably close to what was seen before. Hurricane Sandy wasn't even close to anything that was seen before on the East Coast or anywhere in the Atlantic Basin. Many all-time record low pressure records were set in the region, and the storm's structure and extent was without precedent. Also, the snowstorm was without precedent among hurricanes in terms of the area covered and the peak snowfall amounts, reaching around 3 feet in some areas.
It should be noted that Sandy is second only to Katrina in total damage, i.e. if Katrina did not occur in 2005 Sandy would be the costliest Atlantic hurricane on record. As a matter of fact, if Sandy occurred in 2002 instead of 2012 no other hurricane would even be close in terms of damage. So, regardless of your opinion about Sandy vs. Katrina, don't think that Sandy was a walk in the park for the Northeast, because both Sandy and Katrina were absolutely beastly as far as hurricanes go.
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