It's a new book by Mark Svenvold. Read the review this past spring and had to wait almost three months on the library reserved list till I got my turn. It gets kinda preachy toward the end -- and I'm already in the choir, so to speak -- but it was very weird to read it during the build-up to Katrina.

He spends some well-used time developing a thesis about the success of The Weather Channel, once they changed formats and began doing those one-hour documentary bits on extreme weather. It's a modern American social phenomenon, which Svenvold dubs "catastrophilia".

I think gbaikie said something recently around here about being sick of news crews standing on the beach in the middle of hurricanes -- he's right, it's really dumb. But it gets you big ratings, because we (the audience) get our vicarious catastrophilic thrills.
Svenvold doesn't make this particular comparison, but... what comes to my mind are the people who watch car racing for the crashes.

Out here in tornado country (the setting for "Big Weather") the local TV stations get into it big time. I've only caught a glimpse... on the other hand, I've never seen a twister with my own eyes, and only this summer saw one "live" on TV. I'm a catastrophilic, too.

I've put "Isaac's Storm" on the reserved list. Probably won't have to wait near as long.