Growing up in Florida made me privy to, on average, at least one tropical storm or mild hurricane each year. We never lived on the beach, but we lived through some pretty serious hurricanes. Andrew, for example, absolutely destroyed parts of Miami that were a mere 20 miles south of us. We lost power for a week or so after that hurricane. Hurricanes aren’t jokes, but living through some pretty devastating ones has left me with a cavalier attitude toward them.
The eastern seaboard was absolutely flipping out about Hurricane Irene before it made landfall. Look, I get that a few people died and there was a lot of property damage and power was lost, etc., but my mind was blown at how worried people were. I mean, this was a hurricane that was powerful in the south, but there was almost no chance of it reaching the colder northern waters at anything higher than CAT 1, right?
In the end it was just a tropical storm far offshore when Baltimore experienced its fury. This hurricane was forecast to be the apocalyptic end of New York City by the newsmedia and I knew they were being sensationalist, but all the repetition and fear and mania started to convince me that, well, maybe something catastrophic might happen. This is going to lead to a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” type catastrophe in this country. I just know it. As a result of these frequent misjudgments of weather and natural disasters many people I know, including myself, now take everything the news says with a grain of salt. Maybe one day the big one will come ashore up north, but no one is going to care.
As a small aside to the hurricane business above, this was also the month an earthquake hit DC and forced the evacuation of the building I work at. I was in my car driving back to the office when the quake hit and, I’ve gotta say, I was pretty disappointed I didn’t even feel or notice it. Florida’s not really seismically active (on a scale people would feel), so I didn’t get to experience any as a child, and I missed my big chance to feel a non-threatening earthquake out east yet again! Earthquakes sound terrifying, but I just want to experience one, you know?
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