Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

According to Fox News, so far 13 deaths have been blamed on the storm. Flooding is a big problem, and it’s reported that four million are without power and billions of dollars in damage has been done, but fortunately the storm never exceeded category one winds, even though to watch some of the news reports you’d have thought the entire east coast was about to be wiped off the map.

Here are a few storm-related items I ran across this morning. Feel free to pass along any links of interest that you run across as the day goes on:

–So far there is no time table for re-starting New York City’s transit system, probably meaning no subway or bus service on Monday.

–Doug Ross has 15 Irene photos spotted on Twitter.

–An article in the New York Times wonders if Irene is the result of man-caused climate change.

–Streakers caught the Weather Channel with their pants down — or was that the other way around?

–Joe Biden played golf in Delaware in the hours preceding the hurricane, but only after Carl Spackler assured him, “I don’t think the heavy stuff’s gonna come down for quite a while.”

–Irene’s predecessor: The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 (there was global warming in 1944?)

–George Will: Journalism “shouldn’t contribute to the manufacture of synthetic hysteria.”

–The full size version of the above photo of Irene approaching the North Carolina coast is here.

–Here’s video of a reporter getting covered in what he called “sea foam.” After the video I’ll tell you what it probably is — make sure you’re not eating lunch:

More on that “sea foam”:

MYFOXNY.COM – A local news reporter from Washington, D.C. ended up getting covered in what is probably the remnants of raw sewage as he delivered live hurricane reports from Ocean City, Md.

When he got back to the TV station it went something like this:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe