Few natural disasters know how to make an entrance like a hurricane. You know that thing is coming a few days ahead of time but there's nothing you can do but get out of its way. There ain't no stoppin' a hurricane. It's like the Osama Bin Laden of weather patterns and it's gonna mess up your life one way or another. Hurricanes are jerks, plain and simple.
And at this very moment we've got another 86 days to go before we can stop worrying about those jerks.
The hurricane "season" starts June 1st and terrifies the southeast for several months until it ends on November 30 (this blogger's birthday) each year. This year, with three months left, we've already had six named storms, four of which became full-blown hurricanes, two of which have laid siege poor defenseless towns and cities in the lower part of the US and one of which is hanging out in the Atlantic trying to pull itself together so she can also drop a bomb on the southeast.
Disorganized Jerks
Apparently, these guys need perfect conditions to get "organized" out in the ocean. At the moment, Hanna's having trouble getting it together. But she'll still be able to destroy plenty of stuff as she stumbles into town. In 2000, Hurricane Debby never quite got fully organized but she still managed to take some roofs off of homes in the Caribbean. And, in 2004, Hurricane Charley was tripping over his own feet and dropping things until he lurched into the Gulf of Mexico and really blew up the southwest coast of Florida.
Jerks Mess With Our Economy
If you like oranges, you should hate hurricanes. If you like money, you should also hate them. Every time a hurricane hits, we end up paying for the damages. They destroy crops, houses, roads, stores anything in its path regardless of its tax bracket. Hurricane Gustav will cost us nearly $10 billion in damages. Talk about high maintenance these guys!
Jerks Procrastinate
The "season" for these things started in June but like jerks, they wait until the very last second to really show up. The worst hurricanes don't even pop up until around Labor Day. Hurricane Katrina hit in late August and arguably one of the worst storms in history, the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, nearly wiped out most of Key West. Apparently, they just like to wait until we've already lowered our defenses and we've moved onto back to school activities -- we're not even paying attention anymore.
Two More Jerks
Ike and Josephine are dancing around in the Atlantic right now. They're having a ball and they've got their eyes on either the southeast or the Gulf Coast. We all just need to keep our fingers crossed that we get through this season without any more trouble.
