My SO is. He is out of work right now so he is home all day. And he has been watching hurricane coverage TWENTYFOURSEVEN. All he can talk about is anything hurricane-related.
Conversations have tended to go like this lately:
Me: “Gotta go to work, see ya later”
Him: “Yeah, lots of people have lost there jobs there…mumble mumble change channel from MSNBC to CNN…”
Me: “Hey, I wonder if it will rain today”
Him: “No, the forecast in Louisana will be sunny…unintelligible whispering change channel from CNN to Weather Channel to Fox…”
I could swear I heard him say “storm surge” and “superdome” in his sleep last night.
He used to live in N’awlins so he sort of feels like it’s his “second” home town. And make no mistake the situation there is ::horrible:: and getting worse. Not to mention gas prices, etc etc and on down the line. But it’s time to ramp it down a notch or twenty.
My husband normally doesn’t watch much TV news. But he has been watching and listening almost nonstop in the last few days. He keeps the TV in his home office tuned to CNN or Fox News, and after he’s through working, we watch more news in the living room during dinner. Then it’s off to the bedroom for a little… news.
I tend to leave the TV running in the background with the sound on low, so I can look for aerial footage showing certain parts of town (if I can identify them) so I can help friends decide whether they want to even try to go back. And to maybe see if the house we just sold a month ago is still standing. (We know it didn’t get flooded out – the Westbank levees held.) Plus I’m keeping track of what happens at Charity Hospital, as far as it’s reported, for an attorney representing them who I used to work for – she can’t catch the coverage as well during the day, but is obviously incredibly concerned about what’s going on.
But otherwise, unless there’s a news conference or something really dramatic, I go on about my life. I don’t regard it as being obsessed so much as just trying to keep an eye on it, for certain specific things. Or people I know, of whom I’ve seen a few. It’s pretty weird.
I’m checking CNN and the New York Times very often, although I do that anyway. But it’s increased. I’ve also been killing time on Wikipedia, reading up on Katrina, tropical cyclones, historically noteworthy tropical cyclones, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Camille, the ‘Perfect Storm’ of 1991, yada yada yada… although not today, since I had so many stories to write.
I have a tendancy to obsess over major news stories. I did it during the Gulf War, the war with Yugoslavia (remember that?), the 9/11 Attacks, the Iraq war, and the current hurricane disaster coverage. I was also obsessed with the coverage of Princess Diana’s crash and death, which is pretty odd because I never really liked her all that much, and had only a passing knowledge of the whole Charles/Diana divorce. Yet I stayed up most of the night listening to the news on the night the car crashed.
Eventually, I reach a saturation point where I kinda become numb to the whole thing. I think I’m at that point with the hurricane. For the last couple of days, I’ve been reading everything I can find on all the major news sites. Today, however, I’m just scanning the headlines looking for evidence of any new developments.
The last story I remember being obsessed with was Princess Diana’s death, which coincidentally was 8 yrs ago yesterday (Aug 31st). I could not stop watching the coverage of that thing. I did not sleep at all the night it happened and I woke up at 4AM or whatever og-awful hour the funeral came on. And I bawled like a baby. It was horrible being caught in the grip of the non-ending coverage.
Hubby has been switching back and forth between CNN and MSNBC now all evening. I’m about to lose my mind.
I have been obssesed with this scenerio since I first read about it while I was at Tulane. Every time I saw someone in New Orleans building something substantial, I would think: “Why bother? Its just going to get destroyed in a great flood”. I have read nurmeous articles about this over the years. I always told people about it but not too many seemed interested except my survivalist father.
Now that it has happened, I have been obsessed with this every waking hour since last Saturday. Sunday, I called all my family members and explained how and why New Orleans was about to be destroyed. They blew me off and called me an alarmist and “know it all”. I got it almost exactly right unfortunatley.
One irritating side effect is that family and friends only have a passing grasp of the facts. When they try to tell me something the least bit incorrect, I pounce like a tiger and try to correct an explain. Everyone has tried to argue back and I shoot back with cites and long winded explanations. I feel like saying "Excuse me, while you were working at that “job”, I had two TV’s turned on to two different news channels and my browser fired up in three different windows with the SDMB, on the scene blogs, New Orleans news stations.
Maybe I do need to turn it down just a little. THis thing is going to be with us for quite a while.
My personality and intellect dictate that I find it difficult to put something down until I feel I have a firm grasp of understanding about it, can digest it, come to my own terms with it.
This disaster is incomrehensible, indigestible, and seems to degrade and change with every moment, but that hasn’t yet impacted my usual impulses. Hence, I am soaking in as much as I can.
I keep watching. Even though I can’t stop crying when I do. Even though I have nothing with which to help these people, and that makes me feel intensely guilty and selfish. I can’t stop watching, and thinking about it. I’m horrified beyond belief. Yet I CANNOT STOP.
My mom is obsessed with it. She’s also been depressed for a while, so this is really sinking her. Yesterday I felt a little down myself, and felt a sudden urge to monitor all threads and news stations talking about the hurricane. I even considered throwing the kids in the car and driving to Louisiana over the long weekend, although I have no skills or much of anything else to donate.
I think I’m going to donate some blood tomorrow (which I have never done before) and see what other ways I can be of assistance.
For the obsessed who want to keep track of everything check out Weather Underground, I had been watching this storm for days before it struck. It has tracking maps, satellite maps, probability strike zones…fascinating.
I’m the same way. I’ve been working from home all week because of technical difficulties at the office. I’ve been watching it like a maniac every minute. I’m also not sleeping well. I know I need to stop, but I can’t. I’m not even near saturation yet. I’ve been crying on and off all week. And now I’m getting really angry.
I’ve been fairly obsessed but I had family trapped in Charity hospital until last night.
The staff, volunteers and remaining patients were airlifted out to a Lafayette Hospital last night.
I got the call at 3am that they were out.
Bad news: they lost 2 of the critical patients.
Good News: There were over 1000 people in the hospital when the Levee broke and apparently the rest are safe.
I’m following it, and while not quite obsessed, sometimes I start looking near bedtime and find myself losing a big part of the night. I think it is very fascinating and there is a lot going on on so many different levels that you can learn from, about people, about the U.S., about nature, politics, and so on.
Oh and sometimes I fantasize about taking in a small family into my own place, as I have ample space at the moment spending a lot of time at my girlfriends place. I don’t think though that there will be many people from that area interested in hanging out in Europe for a few months, as they probably feel they need to be and stay in touch (though obviously I do have a good and fast internet connection ).
I have to stay obsessed. One of the weird quirks of my job is working an 800 number hotline. One of the few 800 numbers in state government, so I’m getting multiple calls from refugees who are only getting sketchy information in the shelters. So they call me for any information they can get and I help pass them on to who can actually help them.
).