Question: Why are some TV reporters like turkeys?
Answer: Because they don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.
How many times during hurricanes have we heard and seen TV reporters warning viewers constantly they must evacuate their homes as windy-watery doom approaches. And then, as the hurricanes come ashore, as the doom approaches, there they stand like drenched turkeys – the reporters, I mean – their rain gear shiny-slick with slashing water; gasping for breath into their microphones; buffeted like bounce-around clowns by the raging winds; trying to prove what intrepid reporters they are. But, in fact, all they are proving is how ridiculous they look – dumb, drenched turkeys.
If they need “visuals” to go with their on-the-scene reporting, why can’t they just aim their cameras out the windows of a secure building, showing us the sideways rain, the thrashing palm trees, the stop signs swiveling like crazy. We all know by now hurricanes are very windy, very wet. We don’t need to see the proof time and again with the talking turkeys.
So why do those TV people do it? Do they get combat pay? Or what? Maybe it’s some kind of initiation rite – a TV reporter just doesn’t count for anything unless he or she has braved – at least once – a hurricane, stumbling and staggering around like a soggy drunk.
At times while watching the Harvey and Irma coverage, I must admit I actually hoped a gust of wind would toss one of them off the beach and into the ocean – not to their doom, mind you – but just to teach them a lesson that maybe they, too, should have evacuated rather than stand there stupidly to play “Hurricane Heroes.”
OK, that said, I hasten to add this: I did truly appreciate some topnotch reporting from so many reporters – dry ones. For the most part, the reporters, the expert weather-watchers, public officials and emergency personnel did an incredible job before, during and after those catastrophes. It was so good to see so many people selflessly helping others.
However, I do have other hurricane reservations, besides soggy reporters. Why, for example, do so many people choose to build in flood-plain areas? Man-made climate changes are causing these storms to increase in their catastrophic intensity, which begs the question: Will these people keep building and re-building in those coastal areas, the way ants quickly rebuild their ant hills after rain washes them away?
The federal flood-insurance program, I’m told, just exacerbates the problem, covering losses of homes again and again in some cases, as the owners keep rebuilding their flood-ruined homes. And some of those homes, perpetually rebuilt with flood-insurance money, are not cheap low-lying shanties but seaside mansions repaired repeatedly with insurance pay-outs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the federal flood-insurance program, is in debt to the tune of nearly $50 billion. Too often, the FEMA insurance program has been encouraging and legitimizing the folly of rebuilding in dangerous areas. That entire policy has to be reconsidered and changed, the sooner the better. There are many ways to make habitations much more resistant to hurricane or flood damage. Those efforts have to be strengthened and expanded.
Finally, what should make all of us angry are those people who insist on “riding it out” when a hurricane approaches. They act with defiant bravado as if some kind of courageous lifelong status will cling to them if they stay put. In that way, they resemble the staggering reporters as mentioned above. In many cases, such “heroes” don’t survive to brag about it. In other cases, their loved ones don’t survive either. Imagine young children screaming in fear as they see water rising in their homes and hear the shrieking hurricane winds – all because mommy and daddy decided to “ride this one out.”
Some people have to stay put for one reason or another as hurricanes approach. Some. But all too often, the stubborn turkeys who won’t budge from their homes have to be rescued by good, conscientious people risking their own lives to haul the stay-put yahoos to safety.
Those are three lessons we should all learn from hurricanes: TV reporters should quit trying to show off, federal insurance should quit rewarding foolish re-building and stubborn turkeys should quit their ride-it-out attitudes.
Finally, I want to apologize for possibly offending our feathered friends, the turkeys, who are – when it comes right down to it – probably a lot smarter than some of the above.
