Hurricane Ida and TWC

Hurricane Ida is approaching—and I’m sure the folks at the Weather Channel are absolutely giddy. I’ll bet Cantore is probably stationed on the beach somewhere around Pensacola or Mobile, grim-faced and braced against the howling winds and stinging rain. Surely decked-out in his official Weather Channel slicker, goggles on, feet slightly wider than shoulder width to withstand hurricane force wind. There will be impressive graphics and updates all through the evening, with intense dialogue like this:

Alexis: “Now we go to our storm expert Jim, live on the beach at Pensacola. How’s it going, Jim?”

Jim: “Well, it’s definitely getting rougher out here. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold up before I have to take shelter in the Holiday Inn. It’s really coming down.” (camera pans around Jim—just looks dark).

Alexis: “It looks really bad. Was that a garbage can lid I just saw blow by?”

Jim: “Yes Ally, it was. This is really a situation we have here. I wish more people would have heeded my advice to secure their lids. But now we’ll just have to wait and see how many cans are lid-less when the sun comes up tomorrow morning.”

Alexis: “How about the surf? Is it bad?”

Jim: “Yes. The waves are really getting frothy. Kind of reminds me of the sudsy surf I experienced in Destin in 2002.”

You’ll have to let me know about all this. I quit watching The Weather Channel about four years ago when I felt they went off the deep end with their coverage. Before that, I was a Weather Channel junkie—so much so that family and friends made fun of me about it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not minimizing hurricanes--they are serious business. We went through one here in central Alabama (Opal) in 1995. It rained about a foot before the winds hit. Opal blew down about a million trees, seventeen of which were in my yard. The worst part was that she hit during the night. The power went first, followed by howling wind and terrible crashing noises in the blackness. I was doing what I normally do during the night, sleeping, when Becky suggested that I join her, our kids, and an old bird dog we had at the time in the hall of our house. I knew immediately that she was really scared—that dog had never been allowed inside before. That was a long night. Our only contact with the outside world was a local country radio station, which reported crucial information like “I think our station's garbage can just blew away”.

I hope that Ida is not too bad and people won’t get hurt. I also hope that the Weather Channel folks have a good time, and I’m sure they won’t miss me. I’ve gone back to getting my weather like my daddy did—I just walk outside. If I get wet, I know it’s raining.