Weather Nerd

NYT reported One of the earliest and perhaps clearest alarms about Hurricane Katrina's potential threat to New Orleans was sounded not by the Weather Channel or a government agency but by a self-described weather nerd sitting on a couch in Indiana with a laptop computer and a remote control. "At the risk of being alarmist, we could be 3-4 days away from an unprecedented cataclysm that could kill as many as 100,000 people in New Orleans," Brendan Loy, who is 23 and has no formal meteorological training, wrote on Aug. 26 in his blog, irishtrojan.com. [Also brendanloy.com]"If I were in New Orleans, I would seriously consider getting the hell out of Dodge right now, just in case.".... According to Blog Pulse from Intelliseek, which measures blog links, Mr. Loy's was the most frequently cited nonnews source among hurricane-related blogs. On Aug. 28, it was ranked 14th among most frequently linked-to sites of all sorts. That was more weight than Mr. Loy, who weighs 160 and is 6 foot 2, is accustomed to throwing around. A second-year law student at Notre Dame, he began blogging in 2002.... He called for Mayor Nagin to issue an evacuation order days before the mayor issued one, and his posts on the subject grew increasingly agitated. "It's definitely true that I am more willing to pull the trigger," he acknowledged, "because I don't have to deal with the consequences if they had had an evacuation and the storm hadn't hit. It's easy for me to sit here and say, 'Everyone leave.' "

LA Cowboy blogged There are three ironies here. First, the fact that the New York Times does an article on a blogger covering Nagin's complete failure to prepare his city for the disaster - and yet the New York Times itself still - over a week later - still fails to address that story as a major story or even do a story mentioning those charges.

NYT is too busy trying to blame Bush.

Second, that it took a blogger in Indiana to cover this story.

Third, and most distressing, is the hypocisy of the media in New Orleans and elsewhere. Increasingly, the media is calling for the heads of literally everyone in sight due to the abject mishandling of every aspect of this disaster. And yet, these are also the very same people who - when the Mayor of New Orleans lied to the people of New Orleans about the impact of the storm on the city - said... nothing. Absolutely... nothing. And if anyone has the slighest question about the accuracy of this claim - listen to the tapes of the TV interview with Mayor Nagin on Sunday morning. The reporters were clearly... stunned... by the Mayor's obviously false statements, but they remained... silent.

These are also the same people who - even after it was clear that the Mayor of New Orleans was not going to do anything to get the most vulnerable out of a city that was projected to be destroyed - were all - to a man and a woman - too cowardly to say that the emperor had no clothes, much less, willing to do anything constructive about it.

Did no one think to suggest he use the 600 buses to get people out?

These are also the same people who - as the flood waters poured into the city after the levee breaches and it was clear that the new predicted water depths would soon flood hospitals and nursing homes - remained silent as the Mayor did... nothing. And then when the Mayor continued to still do... nothing... to get anyone out of the city or out of the places most in danger, even with a twelve hour head start... even then, the local, state and national media remained... silent. And even as hundreds of buses and trucks that could have taken people to higher ground - or out of town - were slowly flooded in the sight of their cameras.. yet again, other than a few bloggers, the media said... nothing.

The said nothing about Nagin or Blanco. But they did blame FEMA.

There is more than enough blame to go around for what happened in New Orleans in the past week. Far more than enough. But standing at the head of the line... is the media of New Orleans, and the media in the rest of the country; the same media that is now so self-righteously calling for everyone else's head.