Hurricanes for Dummies

When it comes to hurricanes, we are all dummies.  It seems that the more we know about hurricanes, the more they prove that we don’t.  Hurricanes seem to reduce everyone’s IQ down about 20 points.  For our politicians this loss is particularly devastating because most can’t spare that much.  Some actually end up with negative numbers.  You see, with all the scientific study and analysis of hurricanes, we can’t predict what they are doing, how strong they will be, or where they are going with any certainty.  In fact, the scientific term for this is, The Cone of Uncertainty.  With the 2017 hurricane season upon us with a vengeance, it is time we reexamine what we do know.  Harvey, Irma, and Jose have all managed to affect this Florida writer to some degree

The one-eyed monster that was Irma has gone to where all such evil storms go to die, somewhere, but not here.  Like an annoying relative, she wasn’t welcome, made our lives miserable for a short while, and we were glad to see her leave.  Now we are left to clean up the mess she made.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of experiencing a hurricane, I thought I would provide you with a brief insight to what you have missed.  I will also comment on some of the misconceptions regarding hurricanes, some tips on hurricane preparedness, a few hurricane facts, and some random miscellaneous thoughts that pop into my head at strange times.

First, how do hurricanes form and who’s to blame?  Just ask a scientist this question and they will try to dazzle you with things like the earth’s rotational pull, lunar deflection, ozone layers, temperature inversions, millibars, candy bars, La Nina, El Nino, random adult Mexicans, and Obama or Trump depending on party affiliation.  These scientific explanations are then related to the general public by weathermen and weather women who got their jobs because they were either handsome or pretty enough for television, but too stupid for the news desk.  You know they are stupid because nobody with even a modicum of intelligence would: put on a rain slicker, stand in a puddle, watch lightning striking all around, show you rain “falling” parallel to the ground, lean into a blowing wind that could topple a tractor trailer, and all while telling you that you would be really stupid if you did exactly the same thing.

The sanity of weather reporters is in question.

Irma was a very naughty girl.  She showed Miami her dirty side, the infamous northeast quadrant.  As hurricanes spin in their seductive counterclockwise dance, the second most dangerous place to be after the actual eye, is the northeast quadrant.  The winds here are much stronger than in the other three-quarters.  Why this occurs is referred to in scientific circles as “shit happens.”

In advance of any such storm, governors like to issue mandatory evacuations.  They don’t always know why but the last guy in their position did this and they certainly don’t want to miss such an excellent opportunity.  Mandatory evacuations are somewhat misleading.  The term was developed by government lawyers to avoid liability if you stay and something like a 2x4 through your brain happens.  During the prelude to Irma, I got texts and calls from friends telling me that the governor just ordered the mandatory evacuation of Florida.  Such an order might be OK in Montana or North Dakota with populations the size of a quilting bee, but here in Florida we can barely move on our highways on a good day. 

Hurricane Evacuation

Airports could help but you would be forced to wait in long lines and then you would be told your flight was cancelled because the flight crew had the good sense to stay home.  This happened to my neighbor, twice.  Her luggage is now somewhere between Miami and Trinidad, but she is still here. American Airlines told her that they, after cancelling two of her flights due to their negligence, will not be responsible for getting her luggage back to her.  Her daughter went to the airport to try to retrieve their luggage a week after the cancelled flights and American informed her that, “it isn’t ready yet, come back later.”

Driving to escape a hurricane is also generally a very bad idea.  It’s like seeing that shorter line at the grocery store, if you make the move, the woman in front of you will have at least one strange unpriced piece of produce and want to write a check from a checkbook in the bottom of a purse the size of Christmas mail sack.  During Irma, many people left Miami to go to Tampa, then the predicted hurricane track drifted west and they had to try to make the trip back on crowded roads with little or no available gas.

Where did we leave Timmy?

Hurricane shelters are wonderful places to hide from a storm if you like sleeping on a floor with three hundred strangers who won’t be able to bathe for several days.  The shelters that also take pets will certainly reward you with a wonderful olfactory experience.  The decision to go to a shelter is based on several factors.  If you can actually see the ocean or bay from your home and can’t tread water for 12 hours, you might want to seek higher ground in a shelter or with friends.  If you are a climate change denier, you should definitely stay home because you don’t trust scientists and those are the guys making these stupid hurricane predictions.  Hell, scientists believe in gravity and we all know that is a myth.

If, like me, you decide to stay home, you need to spend the days before the storm getting ready.  You see, unlike tornadoes, which give you 23 seconds notice to plunge head first into your cellar; hurricanes give you days of warnings that change with every prediction.  You get to worry about your demise and the loss of all things material for a hundred hours or more.  If you try to dive into a Florida cellar, you will definitely damage something, like your face.  You can dig 4 feet almost anywhere in Florida and find either water or the bones from an unsolved crime.  On the news, you regularly see some guy in the Midwest describing how the tornado that just plowed through his trailer park sounded like a freight train, just know that hurricanes sound same.  Only, instead of 2 minutes of noise it’s more like 10 hours of a mind-numbing roar.

Sound that tornadoes and hurricanes make.

For that hurricane preparation around your home the general rule is, if you can lift it, tie it down, or bring it inside.  Just remember, if you bring in potted plants or baskets you will also be bringing in whatever critters live in those plants.  My neighbor’s son told me his mom brought about a hundred and eighty orchids inside and, at night, the house now it sounds like old Tarzan movie.  Between the crickets chirping and frogs croaking, nobody can get any sleep.  This same neighbor later related that, while she was sleeping, she felt something cold plop on her arm.  She smacked whatever it was and jumped out of bed.  When the lights came on she saw a small frog on her bed.  He/she (determining the sex of a frog was not on her mind at the time) was a bit shorter and wider than he had been just seconds ago.  She swiped at it again and it jumped to her wall.  She ran and got her can of flying bug spray as she was totally out of jumping frog spray.  She sprayed and sprayed the invader until it was rendered senseless.  For all the rest of the frog population in her house she will have to wait until the frogs eat all the crickets and, lacking any other food source, eventually die of starvation.

Bring in the plants, watch for hitchhikers

Bad spot to park your car

If you own a new car, park it safely.  If you have an insured clunker, park it near a big tree.  If you listen to the local news, they will tell you that you need to buy up all the bottled water you can carry.  This gives the news crews something to do as they report from the crowded grocery stores where frantic people scramble to buy water from empty shelves.  The old Florida adage is that, while you may be able to get blood from a turnip, you can’t get water from an empty shelf.  I saw several text messages where people were asking if anyone knew where they could get water.  I’m still not sure why the kitchen faucet didn’t come to mind.

Buy Water

Hurricanes are a good excuse for buying food you have the good sense not to eat during less stressful times.  It is a scientific dietetic fact that all calories are suspended during hurricanes.  It seems that low-pressure systems, like hurricanes, suck all of the calories out of junk food.  I know this is true because I read it on the Internet.  Food pairings here are critical.  You must make sure that whatever you buy for food goes with your selection of alcohol.  Just know that you will be consuming alcohol in copious amounts.  Your decisions will be along the lines of, which red wine goes good with a meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Goldfish, and chocolate.  The answer is a fine Cabernet Sauvignon or a Pinot Grisio 

What wine goes with PB&J?

Anecdotally, Sue and I, found the perfect food for hurricane survival.  It was a Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cake.  Ours was a gift from a friend that we stored in our garage refrigerator.   Alcohol and desert, what's not to like.  Now, this particular cake had a label that indicated it was best if served within 6 months of purchase.  The fact that this cake had been in our refrigerator for over 3 years did not deter two Irma survivors in search of a treat.  I made sure it would be OK by adding a "little" extra Caribbean Rum.  Sue also found some vanilla cream liquor which we poured over the top, just for flavor you know.  It worked, nobody died.  I think it was delicious.

For Miami, Irma was a tropical storm and not a hurricane.  This just means that we didn’t have sustained winds of over 74 mph.  We had strong gusts, probably in the 100 mph range, but not the sustained winds that would qualify for hurricane status.  Miamians may not legally wear an “I Survived Hurricane Irma” tee shirt.  They still may qualify for an, “I survived a 12 hour CNN Hurricane Irma broadcast,” or the ever-popular “I Lasted 6 Days with No Internet.”

In Miami, we had general flooding of most of our coastal areas.  This is not unusual because currently, we have coastal flooding during any full moon that occurs in a month with a vowel in the name.  We also lost power over a large area of Miami-Dade County during this “storm event.”  Realistically, we can lose power if more than three Miamians sneeze at the same time.  This is to say that, after 3 billion dollars in Florida Power and Light upgrades, our electrical infrastructure is still more fragile than Donald Trump’s ego.  I have it on good authority that Irma, while a previous Marco Rubio supporter, voted for the Commander in Tweet.

Normal High Tide Full Moon Day Miami Beach

The double-whammy for Miami is that Irma got married in Africa to a nasty SOB named Harvey. They had an infant son, Jose.  It seems that Harvey decided to take a vacation in Texas and Irma went looking for him.  Harvey then managed to knock out much of the infrastructure (refineries) where Florida gets its gasoline.  Then his nasty wife Irma, headed west, managed to stumble through Florida, and proceeded to knock down every power line and light pole she could find.  The Florida fallback when the power goes out is the portable generator, most of which need gasoline to run.  There is nothing more pleasant than enjoying 90-degree weather with 78% humidity and no AC.  At night, you can be lulled to sleep to the cacophony of neighborhood generators.

During the recovery and aftermath of hurricane Irma, our illustrious governor Rick Scott managed to put the DUH back in FloriDUH, with an exclamation point!  While much of his audience listened to his words on portable battery operated radios, he recommended that the solution to all our information needs could be found at WWW.blahblahbla.gov.  We could also file for disaster assistance at WWW.FEMA.gov.  With 6 million people without electrical power, 45% of cell towers inoperable, and local home Internet virtually shut down, this intellectual giant is recommending that everyone log on to government web sites for assistance.  You’ll have to forgive our Little Ricky, he’s from Tallahassee.  [This is a parody stolen from the British comedy series Fawlty Towers where a certain character’s lack of intelligence was explained as, “He’s from Barcelona.”].  

Fawlty Towers (Manuel from Barcelona)

This level of stupidity isn’t restricted to government; corporate ignorance also shines a bright light in times like these, even without power.  ATT, my service provider, tells everyone to log on to their website to report problems with your inability to do just that.  Hell, they even have it on their recording when you call.  You have already told the robotic voice, that claims to understand your complete sentences, that your Internet is down, and she will direct you to their website to solve your issues.

Hurricane Irma also pointed out the fragility of our modern infrastructure.  After previous hurricanes, the Florida brain trust regularly gathered to analyze the problems and recommend solutions.  We are very good at this part of the process.  Our guys can recommend with the best of them.  What we aren’t very good at is actually following those recommendations.

In hurricane and flood prone Florida, we still have wooden power poles with transmission lines run through large trees that will topple like bowling pins during a 300 game.  The trees then pull down the lines and snap the poles putting entire neighborhoods in the dark.  We also seem to have gotten used to having access to telephones wherever we go and these rely on cell towers.  Both cell towers and Internet transmission lines can be cut, ripped out of the ground, or toppled, and the power they need to operate can be disrupted.  While I grew up in a time period without AC, the Internet, or a phone system that wasn’t attached to a kitchen wall or mounted in a booth, I now call this the Stone Age.  I don’t like it and don’t want to go back.  However, as any Floridian will tell you, a good hurricane can have you humming The Flintstones theme song in a heartbeat.

After hurricane Irma passed, we all assessed the damages.  Luckily, for me, that damage was restricted mostly to landscaping.  My wife’s car, which is normally a pale blue, was now green as it was covered in chlorophyll laden shredded foliage.  After you haul all the broken tree stuff to a pile in your front yard it is time to undo what you spent the previous week doing in preparation.  This is the UN period where you un-strap, un-tie, and un-shutter all the stuff you strapped, tied, and shuttered before the most recent climatic inconvenience.  This is an inconvenient truth.

I also had to break out my portable generator, 14 miles of extension cords, and my portable air conditioning unit.  Since these are things that get used once every ten to fifteen years or so, remembering what goes where and how things actually operate can be challenging.  Case in point, my generator hooks to a natural gas (NG) line with a long hose.  This hose is filled with air and not NG.  I pulled and pulled and pulled on the starter cord trying to flush out the feed line.  When I was worn out, after my 4 ½ pulls, my younger neighbor took over.  When he got tired, another neighbor tried.  After several dozen pulls of the starter cord, the engine roared to life.  It wasn’t until after the power came back on and I was putting the generator back in storage that I saw and remembered the tiny bleeder button that would have primed the hose in seconds.  Another FloriDUH moment.

By way of a second example, my portable AC unit gets set up in my bedroom.  Almost everything is simple and straightforward.  When I turned it on, I used the Mode button to go through the available graphics, as they don’t use words anymore.  I landed on the graphic of a snowflake and assumed it meant Cool.  I waited and waited and waited and the room was just as hot as it ever was.  It wasn’t until after the power came back on later in the day that I realized the proper graphic was a water drop. To the inscrutable Oriental mind that obviously designed this unit, Snowflake means it’s snowing and you need Heat.  Water drop means high humidity and Cool.  Time for another slap at the forehead, which is now beginning to turn red.

We were without power during the hurricane and for most of the next day.  With our two refrigerators running from the generator and my portable AC heating my bedroom, I walked to my liquor cabinet and pulled out an unopened bottle of Green Spot Irish Whiskey.  This is something I know how to operate.  I changed the official status of my Green Spot from unopened to opened and ready for business.  I poured a nice sized glass of the golden “water of life” and told my wife that we needed a bit of Irish luck.  I took my first sip and the power came back on.  We stared at each other in disbelief and started laughing.  Literally exhausted from spending the day setting up our temporary power solution, all it took was a little Irish whiskey.

Luck of the Irish, Uisce Beatha (water of life aka whiskey)

Now, with Harvey and Irma behind us, we turned to our long awaited vacation.  We are due in Boston for our fall cruise up to Canada on Wednesday.  We turned on the news and what do we see, hurricane Jose after spinning around in the Atlantic is now headed up the east coast to the Boston area.  Yes, Boston is within the Jose Cone of Uncertainty for the day of our arrival.  I am now a fan of President Trump’s Immigration Policy and hope that he can keep our country free from this immigrant.  I know Jose doesn’t have a green card as he is barely two weeks old.  No DACA amnesty for this foreigner.


What is the take-away from all this?  There are hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, mud-slides, blizzards, heat waves, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, or as Rosanna-Rosanna Danna would say, “It’s always somethin’.”  Now you know all there is to know about hurricanes, which is virtually nothing.