New Math?

In all the news about Imelda, from breathless, concerned, compassionate, from featuring heroes rescuing idiots, neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers, somewhere in there the coverage always devolves into the ridiculous. Stereotypically, that involves folks standing out in the worst of hurricaine weather just to "get the shot." One wonders whether they actually believe we've all never seen big waves, downed trees, or missing roofs, or they think it's the only reason the eyeballs turn their way: catastrophic rubbernecking.

Much of the coverage is valuable, showing the where and the how bad of the situation. We the watchers can glean an idea of how safe out loved ones are - or not - or even whether travel plans should be adjusted. It's useful for those evaluating how desirable certain locations might be for living in, plus what adaptations might better reduce damage for those who continue to live there.

One commentary stood out in all that. The last really bad hurricaine blew through there three years ago. Its flooding was listed as a one-in-a-hundred-year event. This time with similar flooding they had to reclassify it as a one-in-a-thousand-year event.

(Pause for head scratch.)

Hmmm, maybe they just didn't explain it well. How are they going to list the next one when they keep repeating without being within even a couple degrees of magnitude of a thousand years? Do they really think the next one won't happen for that long? Granted, we won't be around long enough to know how many more breeze in to create that level of flooding and other damage in the next 1,000 years, but hey, we're around now paying enough attention to notice they still ain't talking about climate change!