I love tracking hurricanes. My friends say it's obviously because I want a hurricane to hit me. Then again, my friends are assholes. I am truly scared of hurricanes. I have a lived through a few, most notable, hurricane Andrew.
Hurricanes make the power go out, so it's hot and dark. Storm shutters go up making it even darker. Then you hear noises outside like wind, things breaking, things falling. The worst is when you hear animals outside like stray cats crying or in some cases I'm sure they are being flown in different directions by strong winds...which is really sad to hear when you can't do anything about it.
I don't track hurricanes because I'm scared either. Hurricanes are just interesting to me. They are massive storms that have all the same characteristics of other natural disasters that we don't often get in this area: tornados, storm surges, tidal waves, dangerous rip currents, flooding (although that is pretty common for us here in Miami), strong winds...etc.
At this point with technology we can track hurricanes up to a week or more just when they develop off the coast of Africa. We start getting tracking and excessive news coverage about a week or so in advance. It's the only natural disaster that isn't sudden, that gives time for people to prepare. In that sense, we are lucky to have hurricanes as our only major threat to living here, especially since they are only once every 5-10 years.
What still amazes me though, is with all the advance warning we get, there are still assholes that chain themselves to the bottoms of their trailers refusing to leave, and soooo many people that do not prepare at all. To the defense of those effected by Katrina, especially in New Orleans, no one expected the levies to break, so there wasn't anything anyone could have done individually to prepare for what happened there.
Right now there is a tropical depression forecasted to hit Miami by Tuesday of next week. By the end of the day it will be Tropical Storm Isaac, and in a day or two it will be hurricane Isaac. By the time it makes US landfall it is expected to be a Category 2 or 3 hurricane. Which isn't bad, could be worse. The tracks can change and it may swing to the left or right of Miami, but as of now it is predicted to be a direct hit. At the moment, I'm not scared, I'm not panicked. I will, however, go and buy extra cat food and bottled water before it sells out.
This is the scary thing. About 2 days before a storm hits, water, plywood, many animal and people canned goods, duct tape, batteries, and other supplies sell out. Even gas stations for the most part are empty right before or right after a storm.
This is what makes the idea of doomsday kind of scary. If we all get wiped out by some nuclear event, so be it. However, if it is something like a catastrophic economic downfall, or a powerful solar flare, supplies will run out asap. Looting will happen asap. Starving to death or trying to fight people not to rob you of whatever it is that you are living off of does not sound like a good idea to me. The doomsday preppers will be the ones who survive. Everyone else will die slow miserable suffering deaths or get killed by other people. That is scary.
It may sound hard to believe if you are reading this...I swear I am not paranoid. That is just by train of thought this morning. The only other thing on my mind is that I hate the colors of my new iphone case- my hurricane tracking obsession makes a better story.
I should be a weather girl for hurricanes only. I already am one unofficially on Facebook, however, I think it would be fun. My grandfather always thought I would be a great anchor woman and had the looks for it. Little does he know I am practically blind, haven't gotten glasses yet, and would never be able to read a teleprompter fast enough or correctly. I am not a great out-loud reader.
I think I would call my segment OCD with Erin. The Ongoing Caribbean Discussion brought to you by Erin and the experts at the National Hurricane Center.
Poor Haiti, they are going to get hit by this thing badly. :( That's the last thing they need.
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