Taming the Risk Hurricane

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Potency

All hurricanes are catastrophic, but some are more catastrophic than others. This may sound glib to anyone who has experienced a real hurricane firsthand, up close and personal. But interested onlookers will be familiar with the use of categories to refer to the severity of a hurricane. This is particularly popular with the media in the United States and elsewhere, where hurricanes are tracked with some enthusiasm, using categories to emphasize their message. Sadly, there’s a tendency to use “category inflation” to increase the impact of the news story, with the potential severity of an incoming storm being overstated to provide a sensationalist angle. Many of us have heard consecutive media reports over a period of a few days ...