The ‘Blizzard of Historic Proportions’ and Other Snow Jobs
National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini was on the defensive yesterday, trying to explain why his agency got it wrong about the panic-inducing “blizzard of historic proportions” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday would dump about three feet of snow on New York City. That didn’t happen. (Uccellini said the NWS wasn’t wrong, really, it just should have done a better job of communicating that the projected hit on the city was iffy.)
What did happen, though, was that the city was placed under full state-of-emergency management and operation, including a total shutdown of public transportation, a travel ban, and even a curfew that carried a threat of fines.
De Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and disaster-preparedness officials are generally quite pleased with how things worked out. Leid Stories discusses why people should be very, very concerned.
We also look at other snow jobs—“news” stories that simply won’t tell us what we need to know.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free