USEFUL FOOLS WRITES that the media were hyping the wrong thing on Isabel:

Contrary to popular opinion and media hype, the majority of hurricane deaths are not caused by wind, but rather by storm surge flooding (which is related to the wind strength, wind area, distance from the eye, and especially topography) or inland rains, or both. These are not necessarily closely tied to the Saffir-Simpson rating (category), which is based only on the maximum sustained winds (normally found in the eye wall).

In modern times. most deaths are caused by inland flooding from the storm’s rains.

Good point. Meanwhile, to those who accuse me of downplaying the event because I’m “safely behind the Tennessee mountains,” I ‘ll suggest that if an event of similar scale happened on this side of the Appalachians, it would barely get noticed. Look at the storm in Memphis that left over a million people without power, and several dead, and got basically no notice at all by the national media, except in the form of an oped wondering why it got no attention. One suspects that it’s because it didn’t affect the lives of Big Media types. Similarly, the D.C. sniper got a lot more attention than the West Virginia sniper because, God forbid, he might have killed East Coast journalists!

UPDATE: Here’s a roundup of blog-coverage of the hurricane, from Michael Silence of the Knoxville News-Sentinel.