[hytem]

Unfortunately, the media is hyping the weather these days. For ratings and advertising, I would guess. What else? Bad weather is like crime these days--if it bleeds or rains, it leads. Yahoo weather posts a 'critical weather' asterisk next to your city if the wind is over 15 mph or if it rains. Just plain silly.

Having said that, this could have been a worse storm. Much worse. You just don't know and can't predict. I thought it would peter out over Cuba--and it did. If it had come out in the center of the Gulf, it might have picked up again. So maybe it's better to err on the safe side? I would say so. With these storms, maybe scaring everybody is a good thing--it gets the pols off their tails, for one.