On Bloomberg
InstaPundit is heavily pushing a number of my tweets, including this one and this one, which bash Michael Bloomberg for his indefensible (as I said at the time) pre-storm comments and actions. So I imagine I’ll get some questions about them. That’s fair, and I stand by what I said last night on Twitter, when I went on quite a tear about the issue.
“With this storm, we’ll likely see a slow pileup of water rather than a sudden surge” -Michael Bloomberg, idiot, 10/27/12. #ImpeachBloomberg
— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012
Yes, I’m angry at “Hizzoner.” Not for failing to prevent an act of nature, but for failing to do his damn job properly — and, worse, grossly misleading the public — during the run-up to this extremely well-forecasted storm. Yes, I think a public accounting of his gross errors is required, at a bare minimum.
But I also don’t want to keep obsessing endlessly about this right now. I’ve made my point. I’ve made it firmly. And I will keep calling out any dishonest CYA statements by public officials about storm “expectations,” like this one by Bloomberg (see also here). I think it’s critical to do that in real time, lest inaccurate memes take hold in the public consciousness. At the same time, I don’t want to be perceived as grandstanding, and as having an axe to grind against Bloomberg in particular, while people are suffering. Certainly, I am not trying to beat my chest and brag about having been “right.” I wish I’d been “wrong” (in the sense that NYC had lucked out). This isn’t about me; what I said was obvious and unremarkable, in my view. It’s about Bloomberg. But anyway, y’all know where I stand; I don’t need to keep repeating it.
For the record, though, I did add a lengthy “update” last night to the bottom of my “Get The Hell Out.” I knew that post would get some attention in retrospect, and I wanted to flesh out my position a bit, and address the obvious counterarguments, in the body of the post. I’ll reprint that update here, after the jump, for those who are interested. And that’s all I’ll have to say about the matter in this space, at least for the moment.
UPDATE: Okay, so Kathleen Parker forced me to say a little bit more…
Forget Romney/Obama. I’m betting lots are thinking President Bloomberg this morning.
— kathleenparker (@kathleenparker) October 30, 2012
Is @kathleenparker trolling me? The idea of “President Bloomberg” is shockingly moronic. She needs to read this: pjmedia.com/weathernerd/20…
— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012
So many “opinion leaders” are such cheap dates. “Project leadership” after a disaster, even if you royally f***ed up the prep, you’re a hero
— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012
Remember Nagin getting tons of praise for being “no-nonsense” or whatever when he said “where the hell are the cavalry”? Ugh. #journalism
— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012
It’s not that hard to stand there AFTER a disaster, look tough & show “resolve.” Making the right calls BEFORE and DURING matters far more.
— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012
Okay… now for that “update” to my earlier post, reposted after the jump:
Evacuate to where? The possibility of evacuating NYC has been considered for 60 years. And will be.
I’m from the ‘Zone A’ Rockaways. In some storms the Atlantic Ocean has met Jamaica Bay across that peninsula. Flood happens.
What if you could evacuate millions of people from one part of the disaster area to another? Put them into a thousand Super Domes without power?
Please save some of your holy wrath for wholly considering the problem.
First, let’s be clear. No one is talking about “evacuating NYC” in totality. We’re only talking about the evacuation of the designated evacuation zones. You’re arguing against a straw man if you’re suggesting that it’s impossible and unnecessary to evacuate all of NYC. Of course it is. That’s irrelevant to my argument.
Having said that, your question (“Evacuate to where?”) seems to suggest that you find the whole concept of “Zone A,” “Zone B” and “Zone C” as designated evacuate zones to be flawed. You seem to believe that ordering folks from those zones to evacuate, in any storm, is a flawed idea, because… “Evacuate to where?”
If that’s your position, then you should be arguing that New York’s whole disaster plan be thrown out — not just that I shouldn’t be criticizing Bloomberg. Your argument goes far deeper than this specific situation.
Meanwhile, my position exists within the world where the disaster plan is on the books, Zones A, B and C exist, and there are guidelines about whether and when residents of those zones should be ordered to evacuate. Presumably, the fact that these plans exist implies the city intended to use them under the right circumstances.
On Saturday, the right circumstances existed, yet Bloomberg chose not to use the plans. He belatedly decided to use a portion of the plans on Sunday — thus indicating he does not agree with you that the whole concept of evacuating portions of NYC is absurd.
So, the “Evacuate to where?” question isn’t really relevant, except insofar as the difficulty of finding a place to evacuate to makes it important to have enough lead time for any evacuation, which supports my argument about the timing of the Zone A evac order. But otherwise, that question is an attack upon the whole concept of evacuation. Fine. But Bloomberg and I agree that evacuation is a valid concept, so it’s not a defense of Bloomberg to say “Evacuation is stupid! There’s nowhere to go!” You’re addressing a non-sequitur.
Moreover — most critically — Bloomberg’s biggest error was not the delayed/partial evacuation (though that was bad enough). Bloomberg’s biggest error was his blatantly inaccurate, indefensible junk-science description of the surge, and his false assertion (false AT THE TIME, not just in hindsight) that it was likely to be “less dangerous” than Irene’s surge. Those statements surely created complacency among those who were already skeptical of the “hype” surrounding Sandy. They’re a huge deal because, unlike the evacuation stuff, where reasonable people might be able to disagree, there is no possible defense of Bloomberg’s blatantly erroneous statements about the surge. They are, and were, just totally and completely wrong, as I and countless others (including many honest-to-goodness meteorologists) said then. It’s simply stunning, as I wrote at the time, that the mayor would make such an “ignorant pronouncement, which will cause people to become complacent, and thus endanger lives. … He’s just absolutely dead wrong.”
Agree or disagree with me about the evacuations, I honestly do not see how reasonable disagreement is possible about the indefensibly erroneous nature of Bloomberg’s statements about the surge.
All around him, the signs are clear: the forecast has been stable for a week; conditions are deteriorating; momentum is building over a wider and wider area; professionals are looking at the data and seeing a major surge coming. New Yorkers and others affected up and down the East Coast turn to him, desperate to hear what they want to hear, and lacking the fortitude accede to reality, he tells them what they want to hear.
But enough about Nate Silver!
LOL!
I don’t think that the liberal press could cover it up if he continued to campaign while something happened stateside they way they did over Benghazi!
Cork, When does that new national TV money start rolling in? I thought I read somewhere it would be an extra 30 million a year/club