I debated where to put this and decided in Media but it's bigger than that.
"There will be no media awards for Al Roker or the Washington Post in recognition of their coverage of Hurricane Barry. At least if the people living in New Orleans have a say in the matter. The weekend weather event, fortunately, was nowhere nearly as bad as was predicted in some media accounts. That’s a good thing."
https://hotair.com/archives/karen-to...real-disaster/
Every spring, when I lived in Colorado, we knew it was spring when the media started panicking about flooding. Then we knew summer was on us when the media was telling us the drought had hit. Sadly, the media doesn't see their job as reporting but rather as making things happen such as evacuations and electing the president they want.
"In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s arrival, it was not the hurricane, it was the levees that caused the flooding. The author of the article above noted that both CBS and CNN warned that Barry could be a bigger rain event than Katrina."
But, a bigger question is why do so many people enjoy the hysteria? I think it's because fear is the dominant emotion and the hysteria gives credibility to what is essentially nonsense. It seems to justify your paranoia.