Opinion

Irma’s Hype Was Worse Than Her Bite

Ron Hart Contributor
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Full disclosure: My mom is named Irma.  I know.  Not a storm or a name you’d wish on anyone.

With the 24-hour media breathlessly rushing to report impending doom on their global warming narrative, Irma  turned out to be not as bad as predicted. Reporters stood outside in the wind and rain to tell us never to  stand outside in the wind and rain. Irma rolled through Kentucky and stopped at Illinois. Not even hurricanes will go there.

Irma seemed to know where she was going because she was named after a woman. Harvey, the male hurricane, seemed to go in circles, lost.  He would not ask for directions, left a huge mess and then left town. Clearly a man.

Irma did not do too much damage in the Bahamas as residents hid in their tax shelters. Behind Irma, we are warned, is Jose. But no worries there. If he comes to the U.S. border, Trump will instinctively deport him.

Trump handled it well. You “did a heckuva job, Orange-ie.” The media could not find much negative on Trump, especially after he donated $1 million of his own money to Hurricane Harvey victims. CNN was on full Blitzer and tried; it will probably soon report that the money he donated had pictures of former slave owners whom he has yet to disavow. And that, after the hurricane in Texas got old, Trump, true to form, moved on to Irma — a younger storm in Florida.

Facing winds so strong that National Weather Service experts say they could have moved his hair part from one side of his head to the other, Trump gave sound advice. He urged fellow Floridians to use some of their Net Jet hours  and wait this thing out at their second or third homes on Martha’s Vineyard.

Next week Trump will visit with brave first responders who were first on the scene at Club Mar-a-Lago to secure beach umbrellas and cover putting greens.

The inconvenient truth for global warming pushers is that we have had fewer and less powerful hurricanes over the past few years. We were due. The last major one was Katrina twelve years ago. With 40% of the country now living in coastal areas, hurricanes do financially impact more people. Feds encourage bad building habits with subsidized insurance; the article of faith that they will bail you out if you build at or below sea level increases the problem.

The left will blame this on global warming and the right will blame it on gays marrying. Mike Pence did what he thought best with the floods coming, gathering two of every animal. The reality is, this is normal weather.  We’ll be fine.

Trump had to do a “deal with the devil,” Pelosi and Schumer, to get federal money to Harvey victims. Gov. Christie of New Jersey, a guy you want on your side (unless you are in a small lifeboat), and Texas politicians feuded over getting Congress to act. Senator Ted Cruz said that Congress was doing nothing for Texans. But to be fair, Congress really does nothing for anyone.

After Harvey, and certainly post-Irma, preening politicians will show up, take credit if things are perceived good and blame others if bad. It is foretold in the Bible and in nature that, after epic floods, the first to surface are serpents. Many Washington political fund-raisers and speeches were postponed because of the flood, so something good has come of all of this.

Not postponed was a relief concert/lecture in Houston by Barbra Streisand. I’m hosting a relief benefit for those who had to listen to that.

As with all important matters, citizens and not the government stepped up. Budweiser stopped making beer and canned water (or, as I think it’s normally called, Coors Lite) to send to victims The pretty-boy, Houston-based, televangelist dude looked bad not being very charitable until he was  publicly shamed into sheltering folks. Not surprisingly, Anheuser-Bush did more for evacuees than the mega-church.

The real feel-good Americana came from those good ol’ boys in bass boats, saving people — black, white, Hispanic. If they have to tear down Confederate statues, they ought to replace them with statues of those guys.

Storms and floods in the South are as natural a part of our existence as corrupt mayors are in the North, yet people are still moving here in droves. Now’s a good time to visit: Confederate statues have never been cleaner.

WATCH CNN AND MSNBC ENDLESSLY HYPE HURRICANE IRMA:

A syndicated op-ed humorist, award-winning author and TV/radio commentator, you can reach him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or Twitter @RonaldHart.