Whew!
Though all the damage and flooding reports are not yet in, by most accounts the New York City metro area dodged a high-caliber weather bullet from Hurricane Irene — which, in the end, turned out to be more bluster than blowout.
Yes, millions lost power, trees were toppled and basements and roads were flooded. But Irene, for all its fury, never delivered the powerhouse wallop that many had feared.
At least not in the metro area. Upstate and in central New England, storm-related flooding was causing significant trouble.
Still, after the crisis passed locally, it was easy to scoff at the apocalyptic TV news coverage, the mandatory evacuations, the transit shutdowns, the governmental warnings and the panic hoarding.
But remember — it could very easily have gone the other way, and worse. Such are the vagaries of Mother Nature.
And the fact is, government agencies and leaders — led by Mayor Bloomberg and Govs. Cuomo and Chris Christie — deserve a lot of credit for the way in which they unhesitatingly took the initiative and ensured that, as far as government was concerned, preparations were as thorough as possible.
And none of them deserved the carping and second-guessing that was creeping into some commentary late yesterday.
Bloomberg in particular was on the ball — clearly having learned a lesson or two from his missing-in-action mishandling of last December’s blizzard.
The mayor was on the scene, in charge and in front of the cameras — keeping New Yorkers fully informed of all breaking developments in a calm but authoritative manner, convincingly and without hysteria.
And it’s good to see that New Yorkers and New Jerseyans largely heeded the warnings, leaving when ordered to and staying off the streets for the duration of the storm.
TV news also played a critical role in the flow of information, despite some now-humorous excesses — like the reporter on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Md., who amused himself, his colleagues and viewers by cavorting in “sea foam” that turned out to be raw sewage.
Far less amusing was the selection by CBS and MSNBC of Ray Nagin — the New Orleans mayor who thoroughly botched his handling of Hurricane Katrina — as an “expert” in how to deal with hurricanes.
In the end, though, we all came through it relatively unscathed. Hopefully, this won’t cause jaded New Yorkers to simply dismiss the next hurricane threat.
Because, ultimately, the old adage holds true: Better safe than sorry.