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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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