Hurricane turned Tropical Storm Irene could have been a lot worse for the Northeast – despite the strong winds and heavy rain – record levels of flooding and seemingly endless power outages will be Irene’s true legacy in the region.
While the media and some elected officials have been called “chicken little” for hyping the storm, I do commend leaders like NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and NJ Governor Chris Christie for making the unprecedented decision to evacuate coastal and low-lying areas.
Even though New York City was spared from massive damage, that wasn’t the case on Long Island. In parts of Nassau & Suffolk counties, they had no power for 5 days. And not everyone had a portable battery-powered radio handy.
As a veteran of many hurricanes (in both Florida & Puerto Rico), the journalist in me had been posting everything from hurricane preparation info to storm tracking to keeping your documents safe on both Facebook & Twitter. After the storm, I got a quick message from a cousin who thanked me for keeping her informed, as she could only check out what was happening on Facebook via her cell phone.
Here in New Jersey, the cities of Paterson, Wayne, Fairfield and Little Falls looked like Venice. Many people are still without power and they’ve experienced massive damage due to floods. Just take a look at this story from WNBC/News4 New York…
Kudos to all the local Radio, TV & Multimedia news teams in both English & Spanish, who stepped up to the plate with timely and relevant information. Special mention goes to NJ101.5 who covered the entire state of New Jersey and the new FM News 101.9 in NYC.
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