Was Prayer To Blame?

"So Moses went out of the town, and stretching out his hands made prayer to God: and the thunders and the storm came to an end; and the fall of rain was stopped." -- Exodus 9:33

I sat astounded at the news reports. Some read as if the watching world is disappointed that Hurricane Irene did not cause more damage or claim more lives. Some blame the media for dire predictions that did not come to pass (see excerpt below). Did we not pray and did God not hear and answer our prayers? Let's not blame the media or the politicians for what has been spared. Let's blame prayer!

"The media spooked Americans with dire predictions of historic destruction that the storm didn't quite deliver. Public service or unnecessary fear-mongering? Hurricane Irene — which was downgraded Sunday to Tropical Storm Irene — dumped water all along the East Coast this weekend, flooding towns, washing out roads, and blowing down trees from North Carolina's Outer Banks to Vermont's border with Canada. It was bad — at least 22 people died — but it was hardly the "end-times scenario" warned of on cable TV and by local and national politicians. In fact, "there seems to be a growing consensus that the storm was overblown by the media, says Charlie Spiering in The Washington Examiner."