Hurricanes Are Scary, And Seem To Keep Coming And Coming...

Hurricane Lee made landfall in Nova Scotia with near-hurricane force winds yesterday, far less dangerous than earlier in the week, when it briefly became a Category 5 hurricane with 160 mile per hour winds. It was headed toward Florida at the time, but all the models said it would turn north and diminish as it got close to New England and Nova Scotia. It actually wound up doing so, although I never believe it until it actually happens. And so all the people in Stuart, Florida, where my sister Susan and I inherited a condo from our mother Mary, could breath a sigh of relief. But only for less than 24 hours, since these damn tropical depressions keep forming off Africa and nobody knows where they will go for days on end. Two Category 3 hurricanes hit Stuart back in 2004 within two weeks of each other, destroying many homes and businesses, and the following year, another Category 3 went all the way up the east coast of Florida causing even more widespread damage. And so I know what these damn storms can do. I took the photograph on the left on Indian River Drive several weeks after the two hurricanes hit in 2004.

What really angers me is people having hurricane parties. A co-worker at the Tattered Cover Bookstore told me her mother, who lives in Daytona Beach, always had such a party whenever a hurricane approached. Talk about tempting fate. Years ago, John D. McDonald wrote a novel called Condominium, about a massive storm approaching Florida, and the many people who thought it was all just a lark, and didn't take it seriously. As I recall, the climax of the story was during one of those hurricane parties in a high-rise condo building. The hostess noticed somebody had spilled a drink on her new rug, making her very angry, just before a massive storm surge hit the building and destroyed it. As Dave Barry says, Florida is a great place to live, except during hurricane season, which runs from June 1st thru May 31st, and that is what it really seems like. And don't get me started on hurricane insurance. The photograph on the right, by the way, is of the pier behind the House of Refuge on Hutchinson Island in Stuart after the 2004 hurricanes.