What was Hurricane Irene had barely arrived in Maine before complaints started flying back and forth about how over-hyped the danger was.
This ain’t no storm, the prevailing sentiment seemed to blow, this ain’t nothing but a little wind and less rain.
Well, yes for most of us, that’s how it turned out. Compared to what was predicted as late as last Friday afternoon, we got off lightly although we are not sure the folks in the northern part of Lincoln County feel the same.
Now, basking in the warm glow of the morning after, we are reluctant to join the chorus piling on the weather forecasters, emergency officials and yes, the media for talking up what was, by all accounts, a major storm for most of its lifespan.
Irene was dangerous enough to kill 40 people and leave four million more without power on its way north.
But for the grace of God, Irene could have tracked a little farther east and arrived in Maine as a Category 1 or 2 Hurricane. That would have been a very bad day in Vacationland.
As it was we got lucky with the storm track. Although, for most Mainers, the weather cooperated in this case, even if it hadn’t, we were warned way ahead of time and had plenty of time to prepare.
Thanks to the apparatus, people would have had to be determined to not know a major storm was coming.
Remember the pictures of Hurricane Katrina; and those people sitting on rooftops without food or water; literally dying for someone to come along and rescue them?
More than 1800 people died in the mess that arrived with that storm and the disaster that followed in its wake. Those people died in part because the system didn’t work.
Thanks to that disaster, we were prepared for the worst, and to a quirk of fate, the worst was avoided.
