The Reaction to Hurricane Irene

Last weekend most of the East Coast was hit by Hurricane Irene. There was a lot of panic and fear at the though of the damage that might be caused by this. It wasn't helped by the media. All the news stations made the storm sound like it was the end of days. This caused even more panic and confusion. All the media did was add fuel to the fire. I had personally believed that the storm wasn't even going to be that bad. I had a conversation with a customer at the McDonalds I work at, he said and I quote," The media is hyping the entire things up, people are out buying pumps and generators and survival kits that they will never use. Then they're going to return them and people are going to lose money." I think this speaks to how the hurricane was being viewed. I mean there are those that will say being prepared was right thing to do because that meant that you were ready for when the storm actually came and took down trees and people lost power. I say that they have a very valid point. The storm was worse than I thought it was going to be, my neighbor's tree fell on my parents car, but I still believe that there was a lot of overreacting going on amongst that general public. The storm caused panic and the media and businesses feed on that panic and fueled it. This gave people a fear the something terrible was going to happen. The storm was bad yes, and I believe that, but this storm was just that a storm that got had a little more power than we're usually used to.Peoples reactions were way over the top for a little rain and wind. This was a hurricane that was downgraded at the last possible moment to a tropical storm, not the storm of Armageddon.