Superstorm shatters our complacency
From the moment evolution made our ancestors selfaware, they understood and respected the power of the natural world.
Yes, you might erect a makeshift shelter to keep the rain off, but if the universe got serious about shaking your tree there was nothing you could do but hunker down and hope for the best.
Today, we owe hurricane Sandy a vote of thanks for reminding us of this primordial wisdom. As great as all our powers have become in relative terms, they are still paltry in the face of natural catastrophe.
Country dwellers, and urban folk who spend significant recreation time outside the cities, are probably more mentally prepared. They are always aware of the wind and the look of the sky. In the cities, it takes hail, a lightning barrage — or a tornado, as Edmontonians know all too well — to penetrate our shell.
After Sandy, many of us were a bit sheepish when we caught ourselves moaning about Thursday’s snow and freezing rain. At least our car wasn’t under water, the storm pointed out. Thanks to Sandy, every one of us has given just a little thought about our own preparedness for a low-probability extreme event.
Absolutely, hurricanes are terrible things. Like droughts, floods and earthquakes, they visit sudden death on innocent human beings and damage the lives of countless survivors. And yet, especially if we haven’t personally suffered the worst a storm can bring, many of us secretly enjoy how extreme weather shatters routine. You could tell that some of those CNN personalities in their expensive outdoor togs were having the time of their lives the day that Sandy struck. Even the irony of standing waistdeep in water while telling viewers not to venture out, seemed lost on them. Sandy’s great power wasn’t simply physical, of course. At a time when the hyper-partisan United States is at its most inflamed — eight days from voting in the most bitter and tribal of election cycles — two staunch Democratic and Republican rivals, President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, suddenly became a mutual admiration society in their shared concern for threatened communities and the need for action.
In an absurd world that makes opinion about climate change a political statement, the storm was so serious it temporarily gave Americans some meteorological reality about which all could agree. Forget the contributing factors, this was a true calamity that required a united response.
It’s true that harmony didn’t last too long. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took Sandy as his opportunity to climb off the fence and endorse Obama over challenger Mitt Romney. He argued that global warming probably made the storm more likely and more severe, and that Obama’s approach to the issue was the more responsible, realistic one.
It is further possible that Sandy has driven home to North Americans two valuable points about 21st-century arguments.
First, there’s the reminder that a low probability of calamity doesn’t mean no probability. Once-in-a-lifetime breaks in a normal pattern do happen and must be prepared for, especially when the consequences are extreme.
Second, effective central governments with the proper resources to act in the public good are sometimes essential. You could tell this week that Republican Christie was very glad that Republican Romney’s ideological ideas about transferring emergency preparedness to the states had never been implemented.
And finally, let’s contemplate that Sandy might have helped change the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election in Obama’s favour by giving voters an opportunity to compare the behaviour of the two sides at a time of crisis.
We rightly worry a lot these days about mankind affecting the weather. Sandy is a great example of things happening the other way around.