Hurricane Irene and the aftermath

What happened

Irene, the most powerful hurricane to reach the East Coast in two decades, lashed some of the country’s most densely populated areas with 85-mph winds and torrential rains, killing at least 40 people and causing more than $10 billion in property damage. Anticipating the storm, state and local officials had ordered massive coastal evacuations from North Carolina to Connecticut. The cities of Washington, Philadelphia, and New York were brought to a standstill; the region’s airports were closed; and more than 10,000 flights were canceled. Forecasters and news teams obsessively tracked the course of the “monster storm of the century.”

Recalling the lessons of Katrina, President Obama cut short his vacation and returned to Washington before Irene blew ashore. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took to the airwaves, warning of worst-case scenarios and shutting down Broadway theaters and the subways. “Get the hell off the beach,” thundered New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who evacuated Atlantic City and other towns on the Jersey Shore. As Irene swept into New York and New England, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, sparing well-prepared cities but causing extensive flooding in suburbs and inland rural areas. “Vermont has a full-blown flooding catastrophe on its hands,” said Gov. Peter Shumlin. The Federal Emergency Management Agency halted rebuilding projects dating back to Katrina in order to rush emergency aid to victims of Irene, which is likely to rank among the 10 costliest catastrophes in U.S. history.

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What the editorials said

“It appears that the emergency preparedness paid off,” said The Boston Globe. Public-safety workers performed courageously, power companies did triple shifts, and even TV news crews helped convince people to move to shelters. Lives were spared because forecasters delivered timely, actionable information. It’s wise to remember these successes at a time when the National Weather Service is “being demeaned as a bureaucratic frill.” Still, there are “legitimate questions” about the scaremongering media coverage, said The Philadelphia Inquirer. Could we have avoided the inconvenience of mass evacuations or the cost of shutting down businesses? Perhaps, but “there are no reports of anyone actually being harmed by hurricane hype.”

Besides, it’s not hype if it’s your house that’s flooded, said the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. Thousands are still homeless and more than 4 million people still had no power days after the storm hit. But we’ve taken the worst of what Irene threw at us and we’re still standing. “The fact that everyone took this threat seriously is a big reason.”

What the columnists said

“Big government finally got one right,” said Dana Milbank in The Washington Post. It was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s satellites and tracking software that predicted the path of the storm to within 10 miles. Federal emergency teams deployed from Florida to Maine assisted local governments with food, water, and generators. Like the taking out of Osama bin Laden, this is a reminder that “government can still do great things.”

Actually, it was local government that came through here, said Jim Lacey in NationalReview.com. “From governors on down to town mayors and county councilmen, government officials were doing what they are paid to do.” There was no civil breakdown, no need for the military, as there was with Katrina in 2005. To local officials, all I can say is: “Great job all around. For this I don’t mind paying taxes.”

Plenty of conservatives are balking, though, at spending money on federal disaster relief, said Brad Plumer in WashingtonPost.com. This week Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia said that Congress would have to cut other programs to offset the cost of relief for Irene, setting the tone for acrimonious debates. With FEMA’s coffers already depleted by this year’s spate of tornadoes and floods, a divided Congress will now have to either pass supplemental spending bills or start choosing among disaster victims. Costs for natural disasters are sure to rise, with more of us living in coastal areas and a warmer planet producing more “extreme precipitation events.” We ought to come up with a way to keep disaster relief funding from being such “a haphazard affair.”