Chez Chesler

Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan writes:

If you were secretly disappointed yesterday when the roof of the Superdome failed to crash down on NBC anchor Brian Williams, you weren't alone. "I would say I was mildly disappointed," said Kiss 108 morning man Matt Siegel. "My colleague Bill Costa was devastated. Normally on Mondays he gets his manicure and pedicure but he stayed and watched TV for two hours waiting for the thing to cave in." When it didn't, Siegel said, Costa felt betrayed. All that build-up, anticipation. Hundreds of thousands at risk. Oil field devastation. Caskets floating out of cemeteries. Caskets floating out of cemeteries? Well that's what they said, those breathless reporters in slickers flapping so madly you expected both slicker and reporter to shoot off into the stratosphere, like human cannon balls.

OK, it looks like a levee broke, and much of New Orleans is under water. Petroleum prices are spiking on the news. But Eagan has a good point about storm hype. Herald Columnists may be available only to subscribers. If you're not a subscriber, become one, but in the mean time, ask for a password. UPDATE September 1, 2005: Brian Chirco of Beverly writes in a letter to the editor No thrill in disaster

I had to chuckle at Margery Eagan's column about disappointed nitwit media folks when the New Orleans Superdown wasn't wiped off the map. Having weathered Category 4/5 Ivan on Grenada, my wife and I are nauseated rather than thrilled by these types of disasters.

Gary Thober took her to task in an e-letter. In her column today Eagan writes about the Spirit of New Orleans, but doesn't apologize for, or even mention, her earlier column; neither did the Herald issue any sort of clarification. On the other hand, when we ask why people did not heed the warnings and evacuate, some blame must be placed on the prior false alarms and hype. Related story: A glitch in the Reverse 911 system in the town of Ipswich sent up to 15 calls in rapid succession at dinner time to the same homes warning about Eastern equine encephalitis. Yet the town's emergency management director Charles Cooper was disturbed that so many calls went to answering machines, busy signals, or were hung up on, saying "People should listen to anything from the Ipswich Public Safety Department." How many times?