HURRICANES

229 – Monday, August 17, 2009

Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, and Wanda – a real list of ‘Who’s Who’ in the Atlantic Tropical Storm names for 2009. Every year about this time, we Floridians grow increasingly aware that these are not the monikers we desire to see streaming ticker-style across the bottom of our TV screens warning of potential destruction. Each station touts their unique and colorful amusing little radar names like Klystron, or Skytower or whatever gives them their ‘virtual edge’ in forecasting accuracy. This season has been pretty quiet so far, which is perfectly fine for this property owner. The one good thing (if that can be stated with even half-hearted sincerity) is that hurricanes offer some semblance of advanced notice that they are coming, unlike their tornadic counterparts of the mid-states. They also have different ‘categories’ so you can really gear up preparedness, if you know what I mean. It is called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale and is probably named after two dead idiots who held a wind gauge as long as they could in a Cat-5 (that’s Category 5 for all you hurricane novices) before it blew them away. (Just in case you could not tell, I made that part up.) Saffir-Simpson is how our hurricanes are categorized by the weather gurus – but if you would prefer a layman’s explanation, find a rainy day, pile the family in the car, and head for the freeway (I recommend a poorly-patrolled and abandoned section of interstate). Once safely there, accelerate to 75 mph, roll all the windows down and poke your heads out – there, that’s a Cat-1 (I assume you are becoming more informed so I can start using the professional lingo on you now). The categories are defined by how much destructive force they carry and a Cat-1 – well, you are doing 75 in the rain with your heads out the windows, you can probably figure it out for yourself. For a better understanding of the scale, speed up to between 96 and 110 (nope, 95 is still a Cat-1, it has to be 96) and you are now in a Cat-2. By now, you have lost your hat (hopefully without your head in it) and possibly the cat too (note small ‘c’ so as not to be confusing) and if you want to see the potential hazards of the storm, drive close enough to the road signs to see if one of the protruding heads can damage them. The experts say that you might also expect power lines to be downed as well – now, I am not all that certain what the qualifications are for becoming an ‘expert’, but I am pretty sure that fogging a mirror must be one of them.

Speed up some more – if you can get the family heap to do between 111 and 130, you have advanced to Cat-3. Right about now, you will be glad you are in your car, because if your home was a mobile (past tense intended), by this time you have a new zip code. The ‘experts’ will mention, in their broadcast alerts, something about the former trees you once had in your community that also have new addresses. To get to a Cat-4, you are going to first have to take advantage of the ‘Cash-For-Clunkers’ program (See blog 216) and trade up from your Neon to a Ferrari or Lamborghini or something that can zip along at a brisk 131-155, we’re talking fun now!! At some point, before reaching 150 hopefully, you need turn your head toward the rear of your ride so the wind will not force-inflate your nostrils and turn your face wrong-side-out. You can forget the house now - all the windows and doors were sucked in when the roof was blown off. You would not enjoy being home anyway because it will be weeks, if not months, before you have electricity in whatever remains of your house so there will be no A/C or TV or any other initials either. If you were smart and planned ahead when you traded cars, you can drop the gas pedal the rest of the way to the floor of your ‘bad ride’ and push her above the 150 mark – uh, so sorry – if you have not already lost all the passengers in your car by now, you are about to - even the driver, who will be sucked from the speeding blur and be deposited as an oily spot on the pavement. You know the really strange part in all this new understanding you now have attained in becoming a hurricane expert – when one of those storms decides to visit our fair state again, there will actually be people in the evacuation zone who will really not want to leave their house where, depending on the category, they will likely not remain anyway!! And they say that homo sapiens is the smartest of all the species!

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