Photo evidence the media is hyping hurricane damage to the Keys
Having lived right off the water in Pensacola for thirteen years and lived through several hurricanes, my wife and I have learned to be very wary of the media when it comes to these storms. First they always exaggerate the deadly potential of approaching storms which some might consider a good thing as it motivates citizens to prepare their property and possessions and to evacuate from particularly vulnerable areas. However, there’s the risk that such overselling a storm’s threat creates a future risk that the citizenry will ignore warnings of a true killer storm.
What I find unforgivable though, is the way the mainstream media, and that includes FOX News nowadays, exaggerate the damage and destruction in a storm’s aftermath, creating huge anxieties in those displaced citizens unable to return to their homes until authorities give them permission. I well recall how fearful and anxious we were as evacuees up in Alabama, hearing the media use terms like total devastation to describe hurricane damage to the Pensacola area, and how worried we were as we drove back, expecting to find little remaining of our waterfront suburb, only to find minor wind damage, trees and fences blown down, shingles blown off, etc.
What the media does is to find one area that has been heavily damaged, perhaps from a tornado embedded in the hurricane, and then repeatedly show differing views of the same area from multiple angles to give an impression of much more widespread destruction. That is apparently the case now with the effects of Hurricane Irma on the Florida Keys. Yes, there was some heavy damage to a few mobile home parks with total destruction of some homes there. But most site-built homes, which far outnumber the mobile homes, weathered the storm well, with the usual roof damage and siding blown away.
The way I know this is that NOAA has posted high-resolution satellite photography on the Web which allows Key’s homeowners to check out their property. Using this tool, I have been up and down the Keys, an area I know fairly well, having worked there for years, and the damage I have found is far from the total devastation being described by the media. There is plenty of marine damage as is to be expected from any hurricane, but the home damage is very limited. And if you go down to Key West, the population center of the Keys, you will see even less destruction. Doubt me? See for yourself:
Use the plus and minus and your mouse or arrow keys to navigate the map. One caveat: this satellite view does not include Cudjoe Key which is reportedly heavily damaged, but I still remain skeptical. From what we can see there are lots of boats blown about, carried ashore by wind and storm surge but that’s expected from even small hurricanes. There is indeed total destruction of some mobile homes, but even there, more mobile homes in the same parks are still intact and standing. Look at site-built homes and you will find only roof damage although I’m sure there are missing shutters, fences and decks washed away. The point is, there is absolutely nothing in those Keys which constitutes the total devastation the media is hawking.
A lesson learned decades ago: Never ever trust the mainstream media on politics or hurricanes.
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Politics
Armchair Analyst – ENGAGED
At 12:15 Central Time, FOX News just reported that 25% of the homes in the Keys have been destroyed. A brief perusal of that NOAA imagery tells you they are knowingly distorting the truth for sensationalism.
I seriously doubt the actual figure is more than a fraction of one percent.
We’ll all wait for you to count each domicile, execute expert analysis of the imagery, and report back a percentage. Quad slide preferred.
My, aren’t we the knowledge snob? I’m so sorry to have offended your expert sensitivities in image analysis. BUT, as someone mentioned, Stevie Wonder could see the discrepancy between the NOAA imagery and what the media is reporting.
Thorry if mean ol’ Poe thtepped on your poor, widdle, expert toes…
Not an analyst nor expert myself, not even close, just relied on that data too many times to count, right now and back in the day. Usually a fan of your posts, but this reeks of old man tinfoil hat, needing something to complain about apart from kids on the lawn, “dey took err jerrbs.” You’re better than this crap.
Well I must be in good company because out of 54 comments, yours are the only ones taking your tinfoil hat position. In fact, subsequent on the ground accounts are verifying this old man’s analysis as to the extent of damages in most areas.
As I stated clearly in the piece, I’m no new kid on the block when it comes to dealing with hurricanes and the media.
Whatever, appreciate your kind words regarding my non-tinfoil hat writings.
What the hell are jerrbs?
Never trust the mainstream media on anything. Period.
They are worse than vultures. I think they get adrenaline jolts out of what they do, and they do not care who gets damaged by what they say, or how much damage is done, as long as it isn’t damage to them.
“They are worse than vultures.”
Vultures are a very useful part of the Natural Ecosystem, reporters simply spread hype and fuck things up.
So they are a species of manure spreaders?
No, manure is useful. And, they are not part of the *Natural* Ecosystem.
I like to think of them as a cockroach infestation. Its not how much they eat but what they track through defecate in and thoroughly mess up for everyone else.
If it bleeds, it leads.
I think it’s this 24 hour news cycle. It encourages bombastic claims, staged scenes, and even outright lying. The more sensational it is, the higher the ratings. It really isn’t much different from reality TV shows. You see the same spins, over the top drama, and absurd characters.
I think the MSM figured out a long time ago that this “sky if falling” BS gets them eyeballs looking at them, and that is all they care about because it translates into ad revenue.
Yes, indeed. Some news crew visited an orange grove that had branches down and green oranges on the ground and that means that all orange groves are beyond hope and your orange juice, orange sherbet, canned mandarin oranges, and stuff like that will be unavailable until further notice.
The same thing was announced about Texas after Harvey went ashore for liberty: beef ranchers are facing devastating losses because all the cows, mom cows and calves included, were killed off by the neighborhood bad boy Harvey. That fails to take into account that a lot of Texas is devoted to growing cotton and most of west Texas is open grazing land.
I’m waiting to see if the herds and orange/lemon/grapefruit orchards were actually devastated. Maybe it’s time someone called these citified bozos to task over their fabrications.
I know SOME herds were destroyed. At least one rancher lost 1800 head of cattle that couldn’t be moved in time because the water rose too quickly. This came from directly from a friend of the affected rancher. There were missions conducted by helicopters and LMTVs to bring hay and feed to other herds of cattle that were stranded without food.
What did the vultures ever do to you? Comparing reporters to buzzards is as unfair as comparing lawyers to sharks. Shame on you.
I yelled at the TV several times when Weather Channel was obsessed over a street stop sign that was bent over because a limb fell on it. They described it in detailed and even zoomed in close.
NEVER trust the mainstream snooze media for SHIT anymore, IMHO they don’t give two hoots of a flying ratshit fuck about being truthful anymore, they want to hype things all they can in order to kiss up to their Editors with a fancy “scoop” that will sell advertising. I remember when my Mom and Dad came back from their European vacation after Dad retired, he told me that the British snooze media then was practicing Yellow Journalism like the National Enquirer and the US snooze media was going to be like that in maybe ten years, he was ABSOLUTELY right! I read media accounts of what happened when I was in A-stan that were usually 80-90% hype and bullshit, ditto with Hurricane Relief Missions I was part of. Your average modern day urinalist would report on a paper cut saying “THERE WAS BLOOD EVERYWHERE, I saw it myself!!!”.
Interesting site Poet. I expected the Sigsbee housing area and RV park to be destroyed since they are right on the bay. They look great. Amazed that all the boats on trailers there look untouched.
Yep, Sigsbee Point is out there and exposed. It looks like Key West was to the west of the hurricane’s upper right quadrant so it ducked the worst of it. All of the Keys, in fact all of Florida, can thank Cuba for draining off a significant amount of the storm’s energy. It wasn’t the same monster that hammered St. Maarten.
Sigsbee gets over 300 RV’s during Snowbird season that dumps a butt load of money into the Navy MWR kettle…not just NASKW…Jax and other Navy installations share. Guessing they will get that cash cow up and running as soon as the KW economy can handle it.
They want sensationalism. They’ll get it one way or another.
Pine Island Local news sources(Fort Myers/Cape Coral) seems to be doing better as far as thesensational aspect.
Have opted NOT to bother my immediate neighbors on Pine Island just yet so I only know generally what is happening down there.
Sigh…
It isn’t something new. When John Gacey was arrested and the county coroner was supervising the removal of bodies from the crawl space under his house, some curious bystanders stopped by to watch. Two women said they wanted to know if it was real or just something the news people had made up.
Disbelief on our part is a very powerful thing, you see. I’m skeptical of anything the media members say now, since they are frequently proven to be embellishing or completely wrong.
Just like a large fire will create it’s own weather, the media will create it’s own news — and for the same reason: survival. Whether that news is true or not is beside the point.
“We’re talking here with Bob Johnson formerly of a town in Florida that’s gone now. Mr. Johnson what do you think of the devastation?”
“Hey, do one of you have a bottle of water”
“No Mr. Johnson, they’re just for the film crew. Now how did the storm impact you?”
“Hey, I see some rubber boots in your truck, could you spare a pair?”
“Mr. Johnson, those are to keep our feet dry. I mean these loafers cost me $400. What about your plans? What’s next for you?”
“Anybody got a sandwich?”
“Cut…Cut!!! Okay that’s a wrap. Get rid of Johnson here and let’s find a huddled mass of people somewhere.”
The problem is also the reporting of the winds as well. They clutch their pearls over 145 mph sustained winds. However, most Storm Winds are recorded at altitude over open ocean. Surface winds tend to be much less than reported especially once they interact with land. In my experience, the Tornadoes they throw off seem to cause most of the issues (I have been through many many hurricanes as I lived and worked as an emergency responder in the strike zone of North Carolina for 20+ years).
I call it the “disaster panic business”. Make no mistake, people are making money off the threat of death and destruction.
Jut had my adjuster in assessing my minor flooding from Harvey a couple of days ago, he reported that Florida took amazingly little damage compared to Harvey. He is actually from the Clearwater area, and I thought he would be hot to trot home, but he said his home took no damage. He told me that there are fewer claims filed in Florida than in the Houston-Pasadena-Beaumont corridor by a wide margin. Texas was damaged about 3 times more (financially)than Florida, and he expected insurance payouts will probably not happen for two months due to the volume.
Yet Texas has disappeared from the news.
15 minutes, baby, that’s all ya get!
A friend of mine has a place on Big Pine Key, after hearing of the devastation there, he was dreading hearing from his stay-behind neighbor. Then he got the call. He lost a few shingles, 3 or 4 rows of vinyl siding, and had some high water in his basement, which is actually the first floor. All in all, he said the pics showed little damage.
Oh, and there’s a boat blocking the road in front of his house.
Now tell me, North, isn’t that almost exactly what I said in my piece about the probable damages from looking at the NOAA images?
Why, I do believe that you are correct, Poet.
“Crossposted at American Thinker”
I like a few articles at American Thinker, but those posters in the comments…..
You’re just a whiny little bitch, aren’t you?
Whoa, ambush!
You do know the only way to react to a near ambush is to assault the enemy ambush line. Do you really want to do that?
What could possibly stop me? Your tears?
Er, um Jonn. Run a pix of your tracked wheelchair. Just crop out the machine gun mount (for now).
-immediately- assault
The key item in that drill is-immediately-.
-you- however, stood there jaw-jacking.
You are a NO GO at this station.
Hey, Yef the supposed ‘infantryman’, are you really stupid enough to try to square off against Jonn Lilyea right here on his own website?
Smart move, SuperGrunt.
You’d better get into defilade.
Hush, Yef. Grownups are talking. You’re in timeout. Putz.
Jonn’s the alpha male in this pack. We will verbally shred your mangy ass in short order over Jonn, or for him.
You will lose.
Yef: where are you, tough guy infantryman?
Yef: why haven’t you come back in here to run your mouth some more?
Have about concluded that it’s the way all millennials talk. They just don’t seem to find much joy in life. Sad for them, and sad to be around.
BURN!
Gee whiz, Sarge, I do wish you’d post a spew alert when you do that!
The Simpsons addressed this phenomenon regarding hyped-up disaster “journalism” in their episode “Snowcopalypse.”
“Well Kent, as of now the death count is zero, but it is ready to shoot right up.”
Shit, Poe. Ifn I had known you were in the Pcola area, I would’ve tried to hit you up for a whiskey and bullshit session sometime. Anywho, I just moved away from there about 3 months ago. But you are spot on when the MSM gets hold of stuff, they blow it out of proportion constantly.
We left thirty years ago, Face. We moved to Grande Lagoon out on Gulf Beach Highway in the early 70’s, when those long white beaches were pristine, free of all the development and high-rise condos. It was a beautiful coast back in those days.
I flew in and out on business a lot; there was a Delta pilot, a regular on the Atlanta to Pensacola route, who, when on final approach to PNS, would announce, “Welcome to Pensacola, ladies and gentlemen; please set your watches back twenty years.”
And he was right, it really was still Old South in those days. On our very first day in town, we had to sit and wait for a civil rights parade to move past, marching down Palafox.
Good memories…
Can that NOAA satellite zoom in on people fucking on the beach?
I’m asking for a friend.
Thanks for posting Poetrooper. As someone who spent a chunk of their youth down there (Stanley Switlick Elementary/Marathon High School), I was especially incensed by Governor Scott running to the nearest camera yesterday and bitching about dumb ass civilians failing to follow his order to evacuate. At least he has the Marathon city manager under control. The latest is that he may not allow re-entry for another week. The survey needs to be completed first before civilians are allowed to get in the way.
Lost power down here in West Delray Beach, Florida over the weekend and got it restored today 09/14 around 2:30PM or so. If FPL would have conducted a grid survey and noticed the tree that knocked down the lines, they would not have energized them, and damaged the lines. Mostly wind and rain bands coming through but not that much rain. Ate 3 MRE’S for 3 nites and drank a lot of water.
It’s that selective sensationalism that they all rely on so much. We no longer have news stations that are reporting the news – instead they are trying to one-up each other and make the news. Then they wonder why John Q Citizen gets fed up with all of their crap and quits viewing their programs! You’ll also notice that they will go on and on about Florida and Texas, but the fires in my neck of the woods? Crickets chirping… Not that the damages to the South aren’t bad, but there are other disasters that have destroyed over a million acres of land, and they don’t say boo.