Was Hurricane Irene Overhyped?

Hurricane Irene has come and gone, and it's all but confirmed that most Stamford residents will have their electricity restored by the end of the week. CL&P has been reacting well to power outages around the city even if it took some public motivation from Mayor Pavia to encourage that reaction.

In Patch discussion boards and in the streets, Stamford residents have suggested that Hurricane Irene, which was reported upon non-stop by local and national media sources alike, was overhyped.

Was it?

This week, I am informed enough to make an opinion, and my shortest answer is...no.

In the news, we follow many reports and many perspectives, and from what I saw, Irene had the potential to be as destructive in Stamford as it was in the Carolinas.

Hurricanes are a tricky form of storm. Sometimes they hit regions that are expected to be passed over, sometimes they don't hit a predicted region at all.

Much of the preparation for Hurricane Irene was based upon the outcome of last year's March storm, which I was not here for, but still hear stories about. It took CL&P a long time to restore power, there was a significant amount of damage to the city, and there wasn't much in the way of preparation for the storm. For last year's storm, there was only a few hours notice, for Hurricane Irene, we knew it was coming nearly a week in advance.

It's possible that state and local officials learned their lesson from last year, and responded accordingly for a storm that was supposed to be far worse than the March 2010 tropical storm.

That's the question posed to you this week--was Irene overblown, or did we prepare for the worst and ultimately luck out?

Send your questions or opinions to Jamal.Powell@patch.com to be printed in next week's Letters to the Editor. Please indicate in your response if you would like your identity to remain public or private.