More evidence of the humanity of video

Like Becca said: Sometimes you just need video. And not only because, video production being what it is, videos are harder to falsify than still photos. Part of it is also the urgency of video as a medium, the visuals and the sounds that give moving images -- whether as art or as document or as both at the same time -- their immediacy and their power.

Compare, for example, the many, many images of Sandy's devastation -- beautiful, forceful, terrible -- to the brief video above. It was shot by the New Jersey National Guard's 1-150th Assault Helicopter Battalion, from a Black Hawk that grazed the shoreline of Seaside Heights. In its frame, you can feel the choppy winds. You can hear the cutting blades. And, of course, you can see the devastation laid out below, pummelled homes and wind-lashed sands and the remnants of fires spreading far, far beyond the camera's narrow scope.