Hurricanes are fearsome things. And unpredictable. And
especially dangerous for Floridians who live on or near either of our
coasts. Those of us in Florida – despite
what you may have heard – do take hurricanes seriously; it’s not all hurricane
parties and drinking.
People here do go a bit nuts, nonetheless, when a hurricane
is on the way, even if they’re not in the path.
They mob the stores to buy “emergency” supplies, empty the shelves of
bottled water, stock up on beer, and buy more toilet paper than they’ll use in
a month.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being
prepared; only an idiot doesn’t prepare.
Sooner or later if you live in Florida you’ll face a hurricane. Hurricanes are always potentially
life-threatening. Certainly capable of
damaging or destroying property and cutting power.
Then how can there be an upside?
Well, for one, it reminds potential snowbirds that Florida
can be a dangerous place. If that stops more Democrats from the north from
moving down and bringing their politics with them, that’s a good thing for all
of us already here. At least in my
opinion.
But I digress.
The best part is the absence of news about anything
else.
When a hurricane is rumored to be coming, it’s morning to
night, wall-to-wall, never-ending hype about the European model, the GFS model,
the spaghetti models and assorted predictions from the Hurricane Center in
Miami to the Farmer’s Almanac to someone’s pet chicken in Micanopy.
And, of course, from local TV meteorologists up and down
Florida. Plus cable news reporters stationed throughout the state to give
minute-by-minute reports on what they’re seeing.
Which is usually not a whole lot until a hurricane gets much
closer.
There’s hardly room for commercials, much less national
news. The little national news we see focuses mostly on the frenzied prep for a
hurricane – the obligatory clips of lines at gas stations, shopping carts full
of bottled water, empty shelves at Costco, and people at Home Depot buying plywood and generators.
So here in Florida we get a break from the usual news.
Like who Trump just insulted in a 3AM tweet. The plight of
poor illegals and their families caught at our border. The latest lunacy from the
Democrats running for President. Silliness
in the Democrat-controlled House. The newest
“smoking gun” evidence guaranteed to drive Trump from office. The trade war
with China. Why we’re headed into a
recession. Brexit. Flare ups with Iran. The fighting in Yemen.
The fighting in Syria. Protests about whatever, wherever.
In short, a whole bunch of otherwise useless information
we’d see every day.
We’re somewhat left with The Weather Channel on steroids on
every station. Which is okay. It’s better than the typical national news. Or the usual news out of Orlando: who
got murdered on Orange Blossom Trail or in Pine Hills, or the latest Disney or
Universal Studios attraction.
A possible hurricane snuffs out pretty much everything else
here.
Granted, the coverage gets a little boring after a
while. That’s when we start exploring
other channels in our cable package we’d normally never watch, or even knew
existed. Who knew there was a channel
devoted to horse races? Better still,
who cares?
When – as often happens here in Central Florida, thank
God – the feared hurricane fails to live up to the hype, we all go back to
normal and wait for the next one. We check up on friends who might have been
affected. We also wonder what we’ll do
with all that peanut butter we bought.
Most of all, we’re all happy we dodged a bullet this
time.
And some, like me, are happy we got some time off from the
typical news for a little while.
Just as we know that another hurricane will eventually come,
we know what to expect when the regular national news returns. The break was nice while it lasted.
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