Nature and Not-Knowing

Photo by NASA Goddard.  Used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (Generic)

Not knowing is most intimate.  - Zen Master Dizang

I woke up this morning to good news.  The power is still on, the water is running, and the eye of Hurricane Irene is moving over NYC.  We will have high winds behind the eye, but the worst of the rain is nearly over.  Although the television news indicates that the city is dealing with some serious problems caused by the hurricane (with continued worries about the rising East River), it appears that the city has largely avoided the worst of what we feared could happen.  

One temptation when the worst case scenario doesn't materialize is to assume a critical or ironic stance.  We can take an almost accusatory tone, discussing the overreaction by the authorities, the inconvenience it caused us, and how we knew it wasn't going to be that big of a deal.  I think this type of reaction is actually an emotional release, born from relieved fears.  

The truth is that we didn't know what would happen.  There is very little data on a how the waters surrounding NYC behave during a direct hit by a hurricane (there is more now!), so the computer simulations were very uncertain.  Our leaders made the decision to look at the worst case models and prepare for what would happen should those scenarios materialize.  They are to be commended for this, and we can all be grateful that the impact of the storm on the city wasn't as bad as it could have been.