CV NEWS FEED // In an op-ed, Poynter Institute senior media writer Tom Jones reflected on the lack of media coverage during the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
Poynter is a journalism nonprofit that “strengthens democracy by improving the relevance, ethical practice and value of journalism,” according to its website.
Jones wrote that after the rain and wind go away, so does much of the national TV coverage.
“Prominent news anchors who came to town to stand in knee-deep water and shout into driving rain have long left the area,” he added, “even though there is still a story to be told — the story of residents dealing with the aftermath of the storm.”
Jones said the aftermath included “power outages, severe gas shortages, a lack of groceries in stores and many other hardships.”
He pointed to two articles in the Tampa Bay Times that reflected on the aftermath of the hurricanes.
Christopher Spata wrote in the Times that when Hurricane Milton was announced, residents of Florida were still recovering from Hurricane Helene.
“We were still learning about more than a dozen neighbors the storm killed in Tampa Bay, many of whom drowned in their homes,” Spata explained. “We were still gaping at photos of sand piled like snowdrifts on beach streets, still donating to friends made homeless.”
Spata said that Milton affected “neighborhoods that no one had expected.”
“Three million households found themselves without electricity. We who had stayed stepped outside to walk our sorry blocks, finding live oaks crushing roofs, telephone lines like torn streamers,” he wrote.
“We saw apartment buildings missing entire outer walls, houses in ashes. We who had fled begged neighbors to drop by our homes. On Reddit and Facebook and Nextdoor, we commented in the hundreds: Could you check out 4137, the house with the blue door?”
He outlined other ways that the catastrophe brought out human nature: People argued over supplies in the grocery stores and then helped their neighbors find missing cats and move trees. He said that while people recovered from the storm, neighbors re-connected after years, or met each other for the first time.
Author Stephanie Hayes shared her experiences in the Tampa Bay Times, and reflected: “Driving across Florida in the middle of the night after a hurricane, that’s one way to make peace with your God. Or start to try.”
Hayes also reflected on the negative media coverage during the storm, writing, “The national media does not have to zoom in obsessively on the few leathery oldsters who refuse to leave their boats, the drunk dudes goofing in rising waters, the big city reporters getting clobbered with flying debris. None of it helps our case here.”
She expressed frustration with the quips of non-Floridians, who asked her why she would live in a dangerous place, and those who attributed the storms to an attack from the government.
“We can forgive them, the quippers, in our quest for peace,” she wrote, adding, “Forgiveness matters in a time of crisis, and forgiveness heals.”
Jones also pointed to an article by the Washington Post about North Carolina and Hurricane Helene, which hit the state as a tropical storm on September 27. The article showed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) vastly underestimated which areas of North Carolina are subject to flooding.
According to the article, a climate modeling group found that FEMA considered only 2% of the properties in North Carolina’s mountainous counties as being in a “Special Flood Hazard Area.” However, the counties were widely devastated by flooding during Hurricane Helene.