After much hype and preparations, Hurricane Irene landed today on Coney Island in New York and was downgraded to a tropical storm. Now, I know that the National Hurricane Center actually has the ability to predict the severity of a storm with exceptional accuracy, so I have to wonder how they could get it so wrong. This was not the first time, either- the first time was when they over-hyped Hurricane Gustav in 2008. Prior to that, they had a near-perfect track record. Is it a coincidence that they have miscalculated so badly twice since Katrina, and is the government using these exaggerated threats as an excuse to prepare for eventual evacuations to FEMA camps? At the very least, this is awful because it makes people feel like they can't trust their government when it comes to disaster warnings. www.ibtimes.com/articles/203367/20110824/hurricane-irene-path-top-5-storms-to-hit-u-s.htm www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2030278/Hurricane-Irene-2011-Flooding-worse-arrival-new-moon.html www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KOm7m5VUyA&feature=player_embedded www.thestar.com/news/article/1045997 www.stormchaser.ca/Hurricanes/Gustav/Gustav.html Gustav downgraded to tropical storm: www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2008/09/01/gustav-nears.html Gustav evacuations; people with cars directed to churches, red cross shelters; people without taken by bus to mass containment centers with poor sanitation: www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21sun2.html?ref=hurricanegustav (the moral of the story is, you better have a car)

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