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I'm a bit curious to know more.
I slightly regret mentioning it now, because as you are about to see it makes me very shirty. I had to do a ridiculous amount of heavy lifting because of it, because every woman I know owns a hundred curios and sculptures and pots that weigh twice their body weight scattered haphazardly around their backyards. Just kidding, I am happy to bitch about this and I was happy to help, because my friends were out of their minds with worry (two of them even called me in tears asking for help) but it was a frustrating waste of effort I could have put towards my primary hobby, avoiding other people.
See, Cyclone Alfred hit South East Queensland two weeks ago, and while I know internationally the news barely covered it, if you were listening to the local news the week preceding it, it was the end of days. And the media weren't alone in their teeth gnashing - the state government and most local governments were very excited to deal with a catastrophe whether it was coming or not, and people who worked for the bureau of meteorology were guaranteeing it would be a disaster on the radio. Meanwhile social media was about ten percent bogans (Aussie word for rednecks) saying things like "don't cyclones usually follow a week plus of rain, don’t they need that kind of weather to build up?" and "if it's only category 2 now won't that mean it will be category 1 once it hits land and starts to dissipate?" and "of course it's a good idea to stock up and make sure you and your house are secure, but this cyclone doesn't look like it warrants things like the fistfight over toilet paper I watched two ladies engage in earlier today" (or maybe 9% that and 1% actual bogans screaming that it was made up entirely) and ninety percent conniptions at these fucking bogans telling people not to panic.
The Monday prior to Alfred making landfall it was claimed it was a category 4 cyclone - the second most powerful type - that would hit within days, with reminders attached that cyclone Tracy was a category 5 and it destroyed Darwin in 74. As a consequence, on Tuesday there was no packaged water or toilet paper (Australians are still obsessed with hoarding toilet paper) in any shops and there were 5 hour long queues for sandbags in some areas. However the cyclone was downgraded to category 2 and was now expected to hit Thursday morning.
By Wednesday the ports were closed and a lot of trucking operations were placed on hold, so there was nothing in the shops at all - no fresh produce, no meat, no milk bread or eggs - if you hadn't stocked up you were living off tinned spaghetti (all the baked beans and braised steak were gone), creamed corn and jerky.
Thursday morning the state was basically shut down. Schools were closed, public transport was shut off and people were told to avoid driving if possible. About one in four supermarkets stayed open - the rest closed - and hospitals started sending people home if it wasn't medically necessary to keep them admitted. The cyclone wouldn't hit until Friday now, the reports said, but due to the warm water it was now passing over it could potentially turn into a category 3 cyclone, so whatever prep you did you better make sure it's good! (Some suggestions Facebook offered preppers were things like put any extra sandbags you have on your roof to hold it in place, or grab your wheelie bin, give it a wash, and then take it into the bathroom and fill it with water - then you have extra water! Various mayors then had to put out statements begging people not to do anything like that.)
Friday hits and now Alfred has been pushed back to Saturday, and by Friday afternoon it has been downgraded to a category 1 - but it is really slow, so it might be even worse because it will just hang around fucking shit up! The only supermarket within walking distance of my place that is still open has to shut at 2:30 in the afternoon because they don't have any stock. A reporter is made to look foolish after doing a report on flooding next to a flooded area that turns out to be a large puddle when a car drives through it. She still assumes the moral high ground on the issue though, somehow.
Saturday felt like we were back in the covid lockdown. The streets were completely empty and service stations were open, but nothing else. Alfred finally made landfall but aside from lost power and minor flooding in places, Brisbane was pretty much unscathed. Having heard that it caused flooding and power outages on the Gold Coast (The city just south of Brisbane) I travelled down to help clean up the school my Saturday market is held at, but it hadn't been touched either. I ended up just helping some friends who live down that way whose house had flooded.
In the end Alfred was closer to a wet fart than a cyclone for many in South East Queensland, but the establishment were really really hoping it would be a disaster closer to the 2011 floods if not cyclone Tracy. In their eagerness they generated a preposterous amount of stress and unrest, and due to the aforementioned tempered rebelliousness there wasn't a way to dial it back. Anyone who tried was instantly declared a bogan who wants to watch the world burn, even if they just helped you unnecessarily move bunch of stupid shit you shouldn't own. Even after it was over people were getting torn to shreds in Facebook community pages and reddit if they complained about the over hyping - the fact that some places were hit was used to suggest panic was a sensible response. Nobody is demanding consequences yet, but the amount of grumbling going on is off the charts.
Tldr: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia S07E06 The Storm of the Century but with Aussie accents.
Fake edit: this is the motte so I know where this is going - no I'm not saying nobody should have bothered doing anything and this whole thing thing was a conspiracy to drive up woolworths stock price or something. It is always sensible to secure your belongings and to stock up on essentials in a storm. And its path was unpredictable, and even if the cyclone itself doesn't hit you, the flooding that follows it follows a completely different pattern. But panic never helps and the way the media hyped it was flagrantly irresponsible. In a sane world they would be flogged, but in this one I assume they all got promotions. And while some of the local governments handled it well (Logan city's mayor was a welcome beacon of common sense in a sea of insanity), many others ran about like beheaded chickens. That 5 hour wait for sandbags? That was because the complicated system they had set up to fill sandbags broke down constantly and was just shitty when it did work. The worst part though? They had to keep using it that day because they didn't have any shovels.
Jeez. Good thing the cyclone wasn't that bad in the end. Any clue as to why people are so miscalibrated? Is it purely culture war-y reasons, or is it purely being calibrated on genuinely bad storms?
It does seem to be a bit of both. After covid emergency preparedness training has been a big thing in the government and I do think government employees were excited to put their training to use. My friend quietly told me on the Tuesday that he kind of appreciated this cyclone, because his wife works for state government and she seemed more alive than she had in years. I couldn't broach the topic with her directly, but talking to her I got the feeling she was happy to have some real direction and a chance to do something with immediate tangible results that she could see were actually helping people. The perverse incentives of the media amplified the issue and as a result the public were terrified.
The fact that you can only ratchet the tension up, never down doesn't help either, and seems to me to be the same problem as our atrophying ability to tolerate criticism - this revolting 'don't yuk someone's yum' attitude that's taken over most media spaces. I have no idea how to fix that though.
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