On Oct. 28, Hurricane Melissa touched down in Jamaica, according to ABC news. A CNN news article announced that the death toll is up to 32 people, as of Monday Nov. 3. Reportedly, western Jamaican areas like the capitol, Kingston, have weathered the storm well. Instead, more coastal areas with less resources to begin with have taken the brunt of the damage.
While most major news outlets in the U.S. have covered this story, even sending reporters to broadcast live from the storm, the majority of followup coverage has died off in under a week. Naturally, Jamaican news outlets like The Gleaner and Jamaica Observer are still updating live coverage. However, in the hallways of LMU, I have not heard a single student mention the storm, or its effects on Jamaica.
Our generation has lived through coverage of many natural disasters. Even just this past year, there’s been the Los Angeles wildfires, the Texas floods, and now this Jamaican hurricane. Is it possible with their prevalence in our feeds that this generation has become desensitized to natural disasters and world tragedies?
A study by Hannah R. Stevens from the University of California, Davis supports my hypothesis. This study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, measured the number of fear-mongering medical news articles released, correlating to panicked Twitter posts. The researchers found that the public, while initially extremely concerned by pandemic related news, lost that same level of concern as the death toll rose. To quote the study’s conclusion, “Findings suggest individuals became desensitized to the increased COVID-19 threat and their emotional responses were blunted over time.”
Like the COVID-19 pandemic, each natural disaster has a high death toll and an even higher emotional toll. It is not that people are used to some tragedy coming around the corner, we just do not know how to process them especially with the sheer number of them shared in the news every week. With that much fear and tragedy coming from all over the internet, it makes sense that people wouldn’t be fazed by it anymore.
But, let’s circle back to the Los Angeles wildfires and Texas floods. Considering LMU is situated in Los Angeles, and our campus was blanketed by smoke, the student body would understandably have a greater stake in that disaster. Furthermore, the media coverage of the Texas floods focused on the young girls that got swept away, pulling on the heartstrings of many. President Trump even expressed the “anguish of our nation” when talking with parents of the flood victims, according to CBS news. Hurricane Melissa on the other hand has not gotten that same kind of attention. Again, it took place in a different country, devastating people and cities that Americans may not be familiar with.
Coupled with our emotional numbness to tragedies of all kinds in the present day, the far way setting of this hurricane made it lose the emotional stakes of the other abovementioned disasters. This is an alarming phenomenon. These were families, children, and students just like us that lost everything in this natural disaster. So, is it the modern standard for people to just be indifferent about such tragedy?
Whether you care or not, natural disasters can happen to anyone, anywhere. As the climate and world continue to change, we are only seeing them in increasing frequency. Though their prevalence in our news has likely impacted our emotional sensitivity to them (i.e. desensitizing us), they continue to end lives and wreck communities. We cannot just watch the destruction unfold on our phones in silence. Next time you get a news alert about a natural disaster wrecking havoc, let it hurt. Empathy is what makes us human.
