It’s Tuesday, and Hurricane Irene is still the talk of the town. While surrounding parts of New York City were struck hard, the weather in the city itself was very tame. I had to listen to my gut instinct on this storm. Every time I turned on the TV news, I had to turn it off. I understand the importance of warning everyone and making sure they understand the precautions they need to take, especially in danger areas, but I was disgusted by the fear factor some of the media placed in residents. I followed The New York Times home page hurricane tracker. It clocked the time and speed of the storm and projected its path. When looking at its current location, I tuned into the news to see if the tracker was accurate and planned my night accordingly. Fortunately, I live in midtown Manhattan. If I lived downtown, I would have taken different precautions, but on Saturday night I put on my rain boots and walked through a drizzle of rain to Le Caprice and had a fantastic three-course dinner. My hurricane companion and I thought we would be the only ones in the restaurant and were thankful they were open. To our pleasant surprise, by the time we left, the place was packed! I am not promoting that everyone should walk out to dinner in the middle of a storm, but to those so easily swayed by everything they hear, try to use some common sense before announcing to the world that Armageddon is coming. I feel for those who were hit hard. Some of these things we just cannot predict, as Mother Nature is the most fickle of all women. I would like to thank everyone who reached out from around the world to make sure my family and I were safe as they heard the news about the weather. While New York City has thankfully survived another natural (almost) disaster, we will have to brace ourselves for a very emotional weekend in two weeks’ time. — Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher