I took a walk before the rain from Sandy started early Monday morning. You could feel the low pressure and see an unusual pallor in the sky even in southern Vermont. One year and change past Irene, I was worried, yes, for the trees, for my friends and neighbors in flood-prone communities. But simultaneously, in that contradictory human way, I was hoping the storm wouldn’t be a dud. I was hoping that it would be just bad enough to show me something I’ve never seen before.
Sandy never materialized in any significant way here, but during lunch I flipped on the television to watch storm coverage from the hard hit areas in New York City, New Jersey, Delaware. “Storm porn,” a friend calls this round-the-clock media coverage, chock full of dramatic music and weatherman in swimming goggles, where moments of legitimate, important reporting jostle for position with outright buffoonery.
My favorite part of television storm coverage is when inevitably a live shot of an on-location weatherman gets interrupted by a shirtless dancing youth or youths.
[With mussed hair, head bent against wind, controlled hysteria in voice.]
The Weatherman: I’ve never seen anything like this, Jim. I just want to reiterate that our viewers should not go outside. I repeat: Do not go . . .”
Then some kid dances by in his undies.
My heart goes out to the weathermen, of course, who mean well and are just trying to do their jobs. And deflating another man or woman’s drama is, of course, an unquestionably rude act. But I’ll always admire the spirit of these pranksters. If they were my kids, I’d tell them not to do this, but I wouldn’t really mean it. We live in a society where we’re told over and over again to fear nature, or pity it – during storm coverage this gets ratcheted up to shrill levels. All of this makes us feel helpless, and scared, and fosters a behind-the-television-screen disconnect that can be really damaging. Having a real relationship with nature is important. And this means knowing what a carrot you grew yourself tastes like, but it also means knowing what 70-mile-an-hour winds feel like. Or seeing with your own eyes what must have been an indelible image of the full moon setting over flood-ravaged streets in Atlantic City Tuesday morning. Things that are real make our lives richer. Ground us. Teach us respect, not fear. We’ll all need these lessons someday.
The loss of life and property in Sandy is horrible, and our hearts go out to all who are affected. Those of us in the northeast who dealt with Irene know firsthand some of what those in the hard hit areas are feeling. But while it can be hard to see beyond the tragedy, there are also things to celebrate in the wake of bad storms. First and foremost are the tangible things – the bravery and hard work displayed by the police, rescue squad, firefighters, line workers, public servants, and all of the other civic heroes who hold our communities together. But also, the displays of human spirit – from the prankster kids who need to feel the storm on their skin, who need to test themselves against it, to the displays of neighbor helping neighbor exhibited after we’ve taken the punch and set to work rebuilding our lives.
While the dramatic music on the television screen might suggest otherwise, Sandy was not a tragic accident or a terrorist attack. It was a storm. That we enjoy storms – that we all secretly want them to be just bad enough – is something that makes us human in the most beautiful sense of that word.
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