Irene is actually quite damaging both in terms of human lives and monetary costs. Irene just made the mistake of being damaging in Vermont and other small media markets instead of where reporters and big new stations are located. As such her local TV deal is decidedly inferior to that of other big city franchises.
You know what, the problem I have is about what was hyped, not about the storm being dangerous. A storm surge from a Cat 1 hurricane (it actually was a tropical storm when it hit) is not major. They evacuated and prepared for a storm surge and it turned out to be nothing. What they didn't do is prepare for flooding from rain - which is the number one cause of damage from a hurricane...and in Irene's case, the number one cause of damage. So Christie screwed up majorly here. because of his ignorance, he planned by way of storm surge and wind, when in reality he should have though in terms of power outage and flooding from levees overflowing. Anyone who has been through more than a couple of hurricanes could have told him that.
A Cat 1 hurricane or even a tropical storm can still do a lot of damage. That is the case in Irene but hurricanes aren't always the same. Katrina did most of her damage as a storm surge while Andrew's winds did most the damage. Christie didn't screw up at all. You are looking at this after the fact when before there was every reason to be concerned about Irene's storm surge. Hurricanes / Tropical storms are tricky things and caution was warranted. Even with Irene weakening to Cat. 1 / tropical storm level it still did a lot of damage and had a storm surge that flooded lower Manhattan and parts of the Jersey shore. If there had been a lot of people still out in those areas more lives might've been lost. When it comes to an impending disaster it is always better to err on the side of caution.
It depends on where you are talking about when Irene hit. It was still a hurricane when it hit the Carolinas. And if you look at what's going on in areas hit with the flooding it is certainly major. 44 deaths is nothing to blow off as not major. It wasn't Katrina, but it was still major.
