Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera explained on Friday that reporters stand in hurricane winds for “drama,” and that the real damage to people comes from water.
WATCH:
Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have all sent some of their top anchors to North and South Carolina to stand in the intense wind and rain as Hurricane Florence reaches landfall.
Rivera noted that the damage to homes and the deaths from hurricanes occur because of flooding, not because of the heavy winds. The winds, he explained, are just “reporter drama.”
“I can’t say … the wind is the reporter drama. You look good, you’re holding on, and you made a career out of it. But then the winds pass and it is the water that destroys people’s lives.”
Rivera added that covering storms is like “covering war” except “no one is shooting at you.”
“Look at Hurricane Harvey. Look at what happened to Houston,” he said. “The event of the hurricane — you’ve got your adrenaline, you’re pumped, you’re gripping onto something, holding on, it comes, you beat it. It’s like … like covering war when no one is shooting at you.”
“Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy joked, “You’re describing what [anchor] Bill Hemmer is about to do.”