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I was surprised and somewhat pleased to see a number of news reports echo the thoughts that I had harboured following New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's scarifying speech about hurricane Gustav ("the storm of the century", etc). The articles observed that, if civic officials start exaggerating the strength of storms (rather than their potential strength, which is where Nagin went wrong), then, eventually, people start staying at home when a warning comes, because they have 'heard it all before'. Then you get a Katrina x 2, and tens of thousands die.
Nagin, of course, was unapologetic, which is typical of a politician. Long-term consequences are never high up on a politician's list of "things to worry about". That he might be a part contributor to thousands of deaths a few years down the line are as nothing if he saved just one life last weekend.
The weird thing is, one reason that nobody died because of Hurricane Gustav was because nearly everyone left the city. And if Nagin had said "this could be the storm of the century. If I were you, I'd hightail my ass somewhere else", then he would have been spot on. Hurricanes are unpredictble things. This one happened to lose strength as it hit the coast (but it might not have), and did not do a "jink right" at the last minute. But it might have. Just because New Orleans wasn't flattened, that didn't make it a wrong decision last week to get the hell out of there.
This hearkens back to this fictional history when, in March 2001, a senator pushed through an unpopular bill that made it harder to hijack planes. In this alternative history, there were no terrorist incidents in 2001 and the senator was attacked by his opponent in the following year's election for being a scaremonger, and was duly voted out of office. The Twin Towers lived on, and the senator became a forgotten, sad figure in history. Sean Penn's The Pledge is another interesting twist on this theme.
So, yes, the crying of 'storm of the century' by Nagin might have a negative effect a few years down the line if people become inured to such warnings. But the warnings that are heeded correctly inevitably lose their impact over time if a disaster is thereby avoided, because no-one remembers the avoided disaster.
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Nagin, of course, was unapologetic, which is typical of a politician. Long-term consequences are never high up on a politician's list of "things to worry about". That he might be a part contributor to thousands of deaths a few years down the line are as nothing if he saved just one life last weekend.
The weird thing is, one reason that nobody died because of Hurricane Gustav was because nearly everyone left the city. And if Nagin had said "this could be the storm of the century. If I were you, I'd hightail my ass somewhere else", then he would have been spot on. Hurricanes are unpredictble things. This one happened to lose strength as it hit the coast (but it might not have), and did not do a "jink right" at the last minute. But it might have. Just because New Orleans wasn't flattened, that didn't make it a wrong decision last week to get the hell out of there.
This hearkens back to this fictional history when, in March 2001, a senator pushed through an unpopular bill that made it harder to hijack planes. In this alternative history, there were no terrorist incidents in 2001 and the senator was attacked by his opponent in the following year's election for being a scaremonger, and was duly voted out of office. The Twin Towers lived on, and the senator became a forgotten, sad figure in history. Sean Penn's The Pledge is another interesting twist on this theme.
So, yes, the crying of 'storm of the century' by Nagin might have a negative effect a few years down the line if people become inured to such warnings. But the warnings that are heeded correctly inevitably lose their impact over time if a disaster is thereby avoided, because no-one remembers the avoided disaster.
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