Here Comes Ike, And With Him Stupid Reporting

Again with the standing on the flood wall. Again with the baseball hat and rushed coverage. Again with the breathless advice to “get out now.” And if I hear someone say “hunker down” one more time, it’s a plucked eyeball.

All that hackneyed nonsense aside, Ike is going to kick Houston’s ass. That much is certain. The flood wall is going to be massive and what most people don’t understand who aren’t from here, is that Galveston Bay nearly reaches the city. What a mess this will be to clean up between the wind, rain and the water.

Here’s the latest from Brendan Loy:

I gotta hand it to Alan Sullivan: he was right, it seems, about Ike. High winds are not going to be the primary issue. But, as I wrote below, the storm surge will still be enormous. Coastal residents, do not treat this storm like a typical Category 2! The Gulf of Mexico is about to temporarily reclaim a large chunk of prime Texas real estate. If you’re in a surge zone, this is no time to hunker down and complacently recall the names of all the previous storms you’ve successfully weathered, or confidently assert that Ike will turn right, like Rita did. (It might. But you don’t know that. No one does.) This is the time to move inland, to higher ground. Get out of Ike’s way!

Brendan actually says “hunker down”. I like him, so I’ll forgive him, but he’s officially on cliché notice.

Speaking of coastal residents…. The Weather Channel’s super hot weather dude interviewed some local Galveston residents who feared that their whole life was going to be “washed away”. This is going to sound harsh, but you’re kidding right? You build a house on the sand where the water laps at the foundation at low tide and this inherent threat wasn’t clear to you? Come. On.

While it stinks to have that happen. It is in no way a surprise. Shit can happen anywhere, but good grief, if you build your house on the side of a mountain known for mudslides when it rains and then, in a shocking display of God’s wrath, it rains, don’t be surprised when your house skis down the mountain. Likewise, people who build their house under sea level should not be shocked when it floods because the city isn’t engineered by a bunch of Dutchmen.

Just to clarify my very un-p.c. stance: While I know bad things can happen anywhere, there are certain places where your risk increases exponentially. All I’m saying, is it’s irritating as holy heck to see people interviewed and looking shocked. Surely they knew that the upside of the coastal property was the coast..and that the downside of the property was the coast. There is a good chance that a couple people I saw boarding up today are not coming back to a home after the storm–water was wearing away at their foundation today at low tide.

It’s call personal responsibility people.

Anyway, right now, the moon glows. The classic “calm before the storm” makes the sky and night clear and harmless seeming. It was so beautiful earlier that I had to steal out to take a walk at sunset. Breathtaking. But as Tolkien says, “it’s the deep breath before the plunge.”

Posted in Entertain Me • We're All Gonna Die