A windy night it was last night, here in our windy bit of Derbyshire as storm Whatsit struck terror into our hearts. Yet on the school run this morning we didn't see a single roof with missing ridge tiles or dislodged slates, not a single fallen tree or branch, merely a few twigs on the road.
As Mrs H and I agreed when we wandered out for coffee, a few decades ago this degree of weather hype would have been followed by some visible damage. We'd have seen such things as one or two dislodged ridge tiles, maybe a slipped slate or two, fences blown over and some tree debris scattered around.
It is possible that the average house roof is stronger than in the recent past, fences are stronger and trees have a tighter grip on their branches. Or maybe people generally spend more money keeping their roof, fence and trees in good order.
Yet it is also possible that the bar for hysterical weather hype has been lowered. At the moment I'll go for the lower hype bar as the primary issue.
5 comments:
The Met Office are desperate to prove that they're not a pointless drain on taxes so they do all they can to exaggerate any threat in the weather. If this fails the staff could usefully be transferred to speed camera operation and parking control where the real money is. Alternatively, as many will have computer skills, they could take over the policing tweets and farcebox posts for assumed offence. That would be most useful because then the fuzz could get out from their nice warm desks and do the job we pay for.
Jannie - I agree, it's promotional hype attempting to cast the net as wide as possible even to areas like ours where the risk is minimal. Speed camera operation and parking control would suit them very well.
I'm going with the increased hype theory. It's a general thing with safety-ism gone mad.
Certainly was a windy night here on the West Coast - gusts up to 80Kn recorded at various marinas and airports. But twenty years ago that's all it would have been: a windy night, take care folks, end of story.
But today ScotRail shut down the entire rail network "due to safety concerns". Ye Gods.
A few months ago we came back from Bordeaux by train (TGV's are amazing!) and it was a nasty evening with a breeze and some heavy showers. The result? All trains North of Carlisle were limited to 40mph, making us 3/4 hour late getting to Glasgow Central.
We're not a serious country any more.
The BBC were making the point - doubtless a form of mood music for their next global warming piece - that this is the seventh "named storm" to hit the UK since September.
That's actually a valid point by the Beeb. Since we started naming storms, we do get a lot more named storms occurring.
Peter - "We're not a serious country any more."
Yes that's it, we take far too many things beyond a pragmatic limit, as if every risk has to be zero or somebody is inevitably blamed.
Sam - I've noticed that too. Maybe it's something to do with naming all kinds of weather as "climate change", because that also seems to give us more climate change. Change the name to "weather" and we'd be fine.
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