Was Hurricane Earl Overrated?

Hurricane Earl was a Category 4 hurricane set to terrorize the New England coast as vacationers headed there for a long weekend. It was supposed to be the scariest storm to hit the region in decades.

Transportation was closed. Utility companies braced for power outages. New Englanders prepared for the worst.

Then, as it traversed the cold waters of the upper East Coast, Earl found itself sporting just 70 mph winds, a far cry from the earlier 145 mph gusts. It also drifted east, nowhere near its initially charted course.

Earl became nothing more than a tropical storm. The state of emergency in Massachusetts declared by President Barack Obama became irrelevant.

Still, the storm caused quite the downpour — large enough to get Friday’s Red Sox-White Sox game at Fenway Park cancelled far before it was set to occur.

So was Hurricane Earl overrated?

Text ‘SOX1’ to 542542 for “yes,” or text ‘SOX2’ to 542542 for “no.”