A Rumor of Rita
It started a full day before Hurricane Rita began digging her claws into Southeast Texas.
From Thursday, Sept. 22, the morning that weather forecasters moved the track of the storm - at that point a city-killer Category 5 - from South Texas to Southeast Texas, until afternoon the next day, I personally sent almost two dozen stories to the Associated Press state bureau in Dallas.
Yet, by midday Friday, with the storm's effects beginning to move ashore, nary a single story on the AP's state wire carried a Beaumont, Port Arthur or Orange dateline. Most of the Rita-related datelines were from Houston.
Unbelievable.
I called several times to bark at them and was told that an AP reporter was on his way. The way the AP works is that we pay for their service, and we send them stories for slicing, dicing and putting out on the state and national wires.
But what kind of storm-related news snobbery was this?
Meanwhile, a friend in Houston said the news folks there were acting like their city was directly in the cross hairs. Never mind the fact that just about every storm model put Rita into our back yard. My friend said that late Friday, he could hear the disappointment in the TV newscasters' voices as they finally acknowledged that the storm was coming to Beaumont.
In the storm's aftermath, the story quickly fell off front pages and the tops of TV newscasts. Media from around the country bugged out not long after President Bush made his visit. Texas Gov. Rick Perry called the storm a "glancing blow," an insulting, near-sighted assessment. One TV news personality was overheard describing the aftermath as mostly a power-shortage problem. A Houston Chronicle employee, chatting with one of our reporters stationed there at a makeshift news desk, made Rita sound like a spring shower. My wife, from her parents' house in Richmond, Va., said the story was nowhere to be found on TV or in the newspaper up there.
Living in the shadow of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, Hurricane Rita was the bastard at a family reunion.
Undoubtably, Katrina was a far worse storm, in terms of death, destruction and human drama. It deserves the coverage it has received. But make no mistake: When it's all tallied, Rita will be in the Top 10, perhaps Top 5, on the most-destructive storm list, with a rough early estimate putting the damages above $7 billion.
As of this writing, two-thirds of the electricity customers north of here remain without power, more than two weeks after the storm. Many of the neighborhoods in and around Beaumont have no electricity. Hundreds of homes in Port Arthur and Sabine Pass to the south have been deemed uninhabitable. Thousands of evacuees, whisked out of here on buses and taken to places such as San Antonio and Texarkana, remain gone, as does a portion of our population able to get away in their own vehicles.
Those who return often express shock at what they see. It is far worse than what the media elsewhere has made it out to be. A quick look at AP state wire today reveals only a handful of Rita-related stories over the past four days. Few people outside of our bubble of destruction know what's really going on here.
The lack of Red Cross presence in Southeast Texas has angered local leaders. No one is showering us in food, clothing and cash donations. Rock stars are not banding together for heart-tugging fund-raising concerts.
The media spotlight has remained bright on Katrina, and now there is the tragic Pakistan earthquake to contend with.
We're pretty much on our own.
On the flip side, the lack of state and national attention and the underplaying of this destructive event underscores how well the evacuation went, aside from the snarled roads and gas shortages, how many lives were saved and how quickly the area is righting its community ship. The leaders seem to be on top of things. Power crews from around the nation are in overdrive to restore electricity. An army of insurance adjusters is working its way through the region. Churches are holding services. Restaurants and grocery stores are open. The mall is open. Neighbors are helping neighbors, as evidenced by the symphony of chainsaws I heard over the weekend. There is no high-decibel cry for help.
We're helping ourselves. Maybe that's the way it should be.
From Thursday, Sept. 22, the morning that weather forecasters moved the track of the storm - at that point a city-killer Category 5 - from South Texas to Southeast Texas, until afternoon the next day, I personally sent almost two dozen stories to the Associated Press state bureau in Dallas.
Yet, by midday Friday, with the storm's effects beginning to move ashore, nary a single story on the AP's state wire carried a Beaumont, Port Arthur or Orange dateline. Most of the Rita-related datelines were from Houston.
Unbelievable.
I called several times to bark at them and was told that an AP reporter was on his way. The way the AP works is that we pay for their service, and we send them stories for slicing, dicing and putting out on the state and national wires.
But what kind of storm-related news snobbery was this?
Meanwhile, a friend in Houston said the news folks there were acting like their city was directly in the cross hairs. Never mind the fact that just about every storm model put Rita into our back yard. My friend said that late Friday, he could hear the disappointment in the TV newscasters' voices as they finally acknowledged that the storm was coming to Beaumont.
In the storm's aftermath, the story quickly fell off front pages and the tops of TV newscasts. Media from around the country bugged out not long after President Bush made his visit. Texas Gov. Rick Perry called the storm a "glancing blow," an insulting, near-sighted assessment. One TV news personality was overheard describing the aftermath as mostly a power-shortage problem. A Houston Chronicle employee, chatting with one of our reporters stationed there at a makeshift news desk, made Rita sound like a spring shower. My wife, from her parents' house in Richmond, Va., said the story was nowhere to be found on TV or in the newspaper up there.
Living in the shadow of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, Hurricane Rita was the bastard at a family reunion.
Undoubtably, Katrina was a far worse storm, in terms of death, destruction and human drama. It deserves the coverage it has received. But make no mistake: When it's all tallied, Rita will be in the Top 10, perhaps Top 5, on the most-destructive storm list, with a rough early estimate putting the damages above $7 billion.
As of this writing, two-thirds of the electricity customers north of here remain without power, more than two weeks after the storm. Many of the neighborhoods in and around Beaumont have no electricity. Hundreds of homes in Port Arthur and Sabine Pass to the south have been deemed uninhabitable. Thousands of evacuees, whisked out of here on buses and taken to places such as San Antonio and Texarkana, remain gone, as does a portion of our population able to get away in their own vehicles.
Those who return often express shock at what they see. It is far worse than what the media elsewhere has made it out to be. A quick look at AP state wire today reveals only a handful of Rita-related stories over the past four days. Few people outside of our bubble of destruction know what's really going on here.
The lack of Red Cross presence in Southeast Texas has angered local leaders. No one is showering us in food, clothing and cash donations. Rock stars are not banding together for heart-tugging fund-raising concerts.
The media spotlight has remained bright on Katrina, and now there is the tragic Pakistan earthquake to contend with.
We're pretty much on our own.
On the flip side, the lack of state and national attention and the underplaying of this destructive event underscores how well the evacuation went, aside from the snarled roads and gas shortages, how many lives were saved and how quickly the area is righting its community ship. The leaders seem to be on top of things. Power crews from around the nation are in overdrive to restore electricity. An army of insurance adjusters is working its way through the region. Churches are holding services. Restaurants and grocery stores are open. The mall is open. Neighbors are helping neighbors, as evidenced by the symphony of chainsaws I heard over the weekend. There is no high-decibel cry for help.
We're helping ourselves. Maybe that's the way it should be.
posted by Brian Pearson at 3:30 PM
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