'Hurricane Sandy; Anatomy of a Superstorm' (BBC2) hit nearly all of the marks that any summary-style documentary should. This was an excellent piece of work, made less than a month since a 'perfect storm' smashed into the US Eastern Seaboard. From the early warning from the weather guys, the preparedness of the men and women working on the Subway and transport system, to the response of the NYFD, the BBC2 programme covered nearly all the angles (just missing Mayor Bloomberg's endorsement of Obama as a significant after-effect of Sandy). There were the human tragedies, people being drowned in their own homes - there were tales of miraculous escapes, of how Breezy Point was utterly devastated by a firestorm caused by electrical faults yet, astonishingly, there were no fatalities there. Some of the images were remarkable; the flooded underground system submerged in flood water, electrical stations exploding spectacularly, boats launched onto railway lines. Wall Street closed down for the first time since 9-11 and if it hadn't been for the evacuation plans, the fatalities in New York alone could have been in the hundreds or thousands. The programme showed how a first world country can catch a break with these events when it has time to prepare for the gathering storm (proportionately, more people were killed and more damage caused in Caribbean). It reminded us all how vulnerable we all are to Mother Nature.
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