Jen Gerson: Waiting for the catastrophic "Cat 5" conspiracy

It feels like a moment in time in which we have to face the fact that consensus reality is fraying to an extent that is not fully recoverable.

By: Jen Gerson

Those who follow my occasional ramblings at The Line will know that I am obsessed with storms. I love them. It's one of my professional dreams to chase a tornado, or fly into Florida ahead of a major hurricane so that I can be one of those poncho-wearing reporters who is pelted with winds and hail live. Weather updates are the background music of my life. Storms are stories in action, each containing a perfect narrative crescendo, and compelling human drama. 

So of course, I've been watching Hurricanes Helene and Milton — woefully from afar — through modeling, landfall projections, impact, and, ultimately, dissipation. 

There was something very different about these storms — not in the storms themselves, but rather in how people responded to them. Major disasters always attract a fair share of skepticism, conspiratorialism, and sheer, bloody minded obstinance. "I ain't leaving, no matter what the government says." 

But the paranoia coming out of Helene and Milton — both the bizarreness of some of the claims, and the sheer breadth with which the claims have been accepted — has become a storm unto itself.