Tis The Season!

No, certainly I know its not that season. Christmas is still aways away, and yes I know its football season, (see previous post) its hurricane season. I grew up in Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin down the plain, and there we called our storm threats tornadoes. We lived right in the middle of what's called tornado alley and in the spring mostly, you better watch out, you better not cry, sorry, Christmas brain. Where was I, in the spring, a cool front matched with the warm air made for some pretty exciting storm watching. Thank the Lord for much better technology these days which makes it easier to keep track of, where Santa is and when.

But having lived on the Gulf Coast now for almost 20 years, wow that's a long time, we don't watch for tornadoes much but we have hurricane season. From somewhere in July thru November there's always the chance some storm named after some guy or gal will come our way. The good news is that with hurricanes you usually get pretty good advanced notice, sometimes days or even weeks. Unfortunately you can't send in a wish list and get what you ask for, some rain, a little wind, and nothing out of the ordinary. So, we watch and wait.

It seems now that the weather channel is following the lead of the major news channels in ramping everybody up into panic mode, a little like getting all your shopping done in time for the big day. And in fact getting ready for a storm is a bit like Christmas in the stores. Everybody's out, making their lists and checking them twice, getting the last minute items, planning their possible road trip to grandma's, except they're all at Lowe's and Home Depot or Sam's club and they're not buying dvd's or clothes or dad a tie, they're buying bottled water, generators, plywood, batteries, and gas-cans.

We went out with the shopping frenzied crowd and bought a generator this last time with Gustav. He looked pretty menacing and in fact he was, except for the fact we got little of nothing from him. At our house Gus amounted to three days of wind that wrapped around the storm, a few clouds, and exactly 10 drops of rain one day, that's it. Thank you Lord. Gratefully, La was spared the kind of storm like Katrina exactly three years ago. Unfortunately, about 3 weeks later a little known and quickly forgotten storm named Rita came our way, ripped up folks just 30 miles east of here and well into western La. In all the hype over Gus and looking back at Katrina, I saw not one picture nor one mention of Rita and her impact on lots and lots of good people, and that Houston's evacuation was much larger than Nola. At least they seemed to have learned a lesson. Keep watch, be prepared, and take care of yourself.

So, we watch every day, for Hanna, or Ike, or my grandma's namesake, Josephine, or the one behind that. Oh yeah, and we watch the political news. Fun, fun, fun. Was that hurricane Palin last night or what? Oh well, tis the season!

We wish you merry hurricane season,
We wish you merry hurricane season,
We wish you merry hurricane season,
for the rest of the year! (till Nov really)

live from de's Gulf Coast watch station,
de