. . .The bottom line is this. If Bloomberg had properly conveyed the magnitude of the coming disaster — which was completely foreseen; it was not “unexpected” at all — residents would have had more, better information about how to handle it, and then the ball would have been totally in their court, and Bloomberg wouldn’t be subject to any criticism for poor decisions by individual residents who ignored his good advice. But instead, Bloomberg gave out completely misleading, scientifically inaccurate information, presented as “fact” (and inevitably regurgitated in the media, as authoritative-sounding executive officials’ statements generally are), which inevitably reinforced the pre-existing skepticism of those who felt Sandy was nothing but a hypestorm. Thus, Bloomberg increased complacency about the storm. His initial evacuation decision fed into this same complacency, and his belated partial change of heart came too late to fully undo the damage. . .