Norm, Before you complain too loudly about "government employees" crying wolf, think about the consequences.
I think it is hundreds of times more damaging if a hurricane hits without sufficient warning or preparation than it is when warning is given but the event is less serious than predicted. In all cases meteorology deals with probabilities. "Government employees" must determine how much preparation to make based on the probability of the impending event. If the probability is only 25%, you might think that they should all chill and let the dice roll - but would you bet your family's life on a dice roll? >From a statistical standpoint, I would rather see 10 or 100 false alarms for every correctly predicted catastrophe. Hugh. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 8:32 AM To: A LiveAboardList Subject: [Liveaboard] A Non-Event Ahoy All, Hurricane Earl was 99.9% a media event here in New England. Lots of folks getting paid to run around in circles and yell "The sky is about to fall!!!" There was some rain in the southeast portion of the area, mostly on Nantucket but the TV folks expended far more energy than Earl did. The boob-tube babble was endless but the field crews were hard pressed to find anything worth filming. A great deal of the hot air came from government employees, thank Goodness it didn't get into Earl's system. Speaking of government employees, five local "on call" firefighters were arrested yesterday for setting fires so they could get paid for putting them out. Here in the inner harbor of Gloucester last night we had dead calm winds, fog, and a little after midnight a few light to moderate showers, much less weather than the last rain a couple of weeks ago during the passage of a cold front. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Gloucester MA _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
