Gustav Coverage Fails to Serve Public Interest

It’s amazing how the press can turn a blessing into a curse.

I have been glued to the screen, watching the Gustav coverage. Earlier today, it seemed that things were going very well. No hurricane-force wind for New Orleans. No real problems for our oil industry. No significant flooding. But the TV commentators managed to half-convince me that we were headed for another disaster. Fox News was the worst. I would hate to see their reaction to a true catastrophe.

All the cable networks are focusing on a levee in the northern part of the 9th Ward. The levee is twelve feet above normal water levels, and the water has risen 11.2 feet. So there are waves coming over the top of the levee. And the levee is a thin concrete wall. I’d say under a foot thick.

The Fox crew found out a barge had come loose in the Industrial Canal, which is in the area of the levee. You should have heard the hysterics. A runaway barge broke a levee during Katrina, so clearly A BREACH COULD HAPPEN AT ANY MOMENT, FLOODING THE ENTIRE NINTH WARD. I halfway expected Shepard Smith to ask for the last rites. By the way, he was hyping the storm while standing outdoors in a golf shirt.

When they first began describing the barge problem, there wasn’t a whole lot of video from the area. I’ve seen a bunch of hurricanes, so I know you don’t want to be outside while the wind is blowing. I had a mental image of twenty-foot waves, with a giant barge bucking on top of them looking for a levee to break. They said the Coast Guard was going to “attempt” to recover the barge and secure it. I wondered how they would manage to navigate.

When they showed video of the canal, the water was calm enough for a small boat. It gets worse here in the bay. And the wind was so light, no one had trouble standing. And the rain was on and off. In weather like that, getting to a barge would be no problem at all. The problem was easily solved by two tug boats, which went out and rounded the barge up.

Other reporters said there was flooding already! Homes and stop signs were underwater!

Okay, think about that. If a stop sign is underwater, how can you tell? You wouldn’t be able to see it through the dirty water. Obviously, what really happened was that water came up and covered the base of a sign. As for the houses, my bet is that a few low-lying homes have water up to their foundations.

Funny, they haven’t shown any submerged houses or signs, which is exactly what they would have done, had they had any footage. That probably tells us everything we need to know.

I saw an honest weatherman a few minutes ago. On another channel, someone was saying the new estimate for the surge went as high as fourteen feet. You can imagine how awful that would be, with an eleven-foot wall. This guy must have missed the “Please Terrify the Viewing Public” memo, because he pointed out that the eye of the storm had already passed its nearest approach to New Orleans, and that the storm was getting farther away, and that things should start improving.

I truly do not understand the ethics of a journalist who exaggerates the severity of a natural disaster. This hurricane could have been a horror, and it could also have impacted a national election. It could have been a very big deal. People all over the country were concerned. I certainly was. It’s not right for reporters and anchors to yank our chains like this. It upsets people, and it erodes the credibility of the press. If the TV heads scream every time the wind blows, who will believe them when we really have a problem?

Another thing: what is the explanation for the eleven-foot levee? You should see this thing. It would remind you of the little concrete half-walls they put between lanes of highway traffic during road work. We already know ship owners aren’t responsible enough to secure their vessels. Why build a thin levee which would give way when struck by a ship? Today the winds were something like forty miles per hour, and the water only rose eleven feet. What if the surge went over fifteen feet, as it has in other places, and the wind went to 175? What good would that little wall be? If you can make a wall a foot thick, you can make one six feet thick. If you can make it eleven feet high, you can make it twenty feet high. We’re not talking about building the Panama Canal, here. We’re talking about a few miles of wall, to save lives. Am I wrong? Is there some reason why we can’t do better? Here in Miami, we have dozens of miles of elevated highway. That took much more material and effort than a decent levee. If we can build expressways, why can’t we build levees we know will work?

What if Gustav had landed five miles east of New Orleans, with 150-mile-per-hour winds? Those levees would have been underwater, along with the rest of the city. No question. How would our government officials have explained that?

Regardless of my complaints and criticisms, it’s great to see this mess behind us. I just hope the right people are scared enough to prepare for the next Gustav.