With the exception of the beleaguered Atlanta Journal-Constitution, no major papers are covering the flooding currently ravaging Atlanta, Georgia. I only know about it because my mother and step-father live there—they’re fine, but my mother nearly couldn’t get home last night because of so many downed trees, washed-out roads, and police barricades. My step-father, being ex-Special Forces, was ridiculously well-prepared (hurricane lamps, a universal charger for multiple cell phones that hooks up to his car’s cigarette lighter), but their neighbors aren’t so lucky: good friends of theirs have seen their house so damaged that they expect to live in a hotel for months.
Can someone explain how this isn’t a news story? Where’s the coverage? Atlanta received 14 inches of rain in a few days, which all goes on hard-packed clay (it’s a very dry part of the country) and thousands of miles of roadway. There’s nowhere for the rain to go except into people’s houses. Police are rescuing people by boat. The three interstates are shut. Every school in the city is closed. And the best the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe can do is stick the same A.P. link at the bottom of their national news subsections: “Toddler Among 6 Killed as Storms Drench Southeast”. And that story is 12 hours old.
I sincerely hope that it’s my familial proximity to people at Atlanta that has me seeing this story all out of proportion. But if it’s not, are we seeing the news industry’s Katrina? Is this evidence that newspapers are unable or unwilling to expend the resources to help inform people during a natural disaster?
Update
One of my mother’s business partners reports:
After a 3 hour ride home, both entrances to my subdivision were blocked due to flooding. I ultimately had to park about a half mile away and then had to wade thru about 3.5 feet of water to get to my house. Luckily, my home has very little flood damage. Almost all the other units have inches of water in their homes. Anyway, they are currently not allowing us to use water since that is causing further problems although I don’t quite understand why. So tomorrow I might have to find a place to shower and I’m not sure if I will have to wade thru water again to get back to my car.