Hurricane Watch
I have to admit something. Well, something else, because I’ve admitted quite a bit on this blog as it is.
I am a hurricane junkie.
And it wasn’t the horror of Katrina that got me hooked. In fact, that particular hurricane was so awful that I felt sort of guilty watching the cable networks as people were rescued off of rooftops and chaos erupted at the Superdome.
No, I much prefer the preparations, the evacuations, and most of all, the videos like these that come with the lesser hurricanes. I thrill to see footage of yachts piled on top of each other in marinas and trashcans rolling down the streets and 20 foot waves crashing over piers. Now that’s reality television.
But inevitably, I get a little too involved.
“They’re evacuating all of New Orleans,” I told Hubs worriedly on Saturday night. In my mind, I was making mental lists of all that I’d need to bring with me, should they call for a mandatory hurricane evacuation here in Nashville. The kids’ baby pictures, my jewelry, my laptop… Oh, God. “Did you hear me?” I asked as Hubs calmly continued watching the USC game. “It’s a mandatory evacuation. That means we have no choice.”
“We?” Hubs asked, barely looking away from the game.
“I mean, they,” I said. “So far,” I added darkly.
Sunday afternoon, I watched the New Orleans mayor tell people they were crazy not to evacuate, calling Gustav the “Mother of All Storms” (which prompted me to puzzle endlessly over whether he was right or wrong to call a storm with a man’s name a ‘mother’). Worried, I made a quick trip to the supermarket for extra bread, milk and water. I filled the SUV with gas, and was surprised that there were no long lines at the station. Wasn’t anyone else watching TV? Was I really the only one with Hurricane Brain? Idiots, I thought to myself, watching the rest of the neighborhood casually go about its business. When the Mother of All Storms makes landfall, they’ll be begging me for my Bunny Bread!
And so today, while the rest of you are out water skiing and barbequing and basically lolling about like sloths, I’ll be taping big X-es over my windows, watching the news on three different screens, and trembling over Gustav’s fury. May God save us.
>Um… aren’t you safe in Nashville? No? OK, proceed with your precautions. I found another great video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3gw8DyVsco(Only the beginning when the guy gets blown over by the wind)
>I used to live in South Florida in a Level B (cat. 3 or greater) hurricane zone and evacuating was such a pain in the ass! Yes, well worth it to avoid potential danger but Gah! Am watching the coverage and reliving the stress.
>Lol! I haven’t taped the windows yet, but I have become a bit of a junkie.Hubby’s out of town, and the boy decided to go to bed obscenely early last night so he could wake up at the ass-crack of dawn for today’s all-day Pokemon marathon on TV.That left me free to sit in bed and flip back and forth between CNN and TWC until I fell asleep, with the TV on. Woke up every hour or so and fumbled for my glasses so I could get an update before falling back asleep. Love it.
>OMG! I do the exact same thing. We are in Central Texas and I am always making disaster prep kits. Guess it is only thrilling because I haven’t actually experienced it. Dora just got turned off in favor of Weather Channel.
>Bunny bread? Woman! What are you thinking? Don’t you know that you need to be loading up on crackers? When the massive hurricanes take over your house in Nashville, your food will be all moldy from the dampness. You need crackers!May I suggest beginning the plans for an ark? And, if the hurricane reaches Nashvegas, can I please buy tickets to get on?
>Ever since husband started traveling to South TX every week, I’m obsessed with gulf coast weather. I once called him at 4am to tell him to make sure the pilot was aware of the weather over Houston. He was supposed to fly to TX today, but had to cancel. That part of the storm is a bit of a blessing.
>Crackers? Oh now, what you need to get is some of those big buckets of emergency rations that Costco is known to sell. With like 105 rations, you could survive the Mother of all Storms and any future progeny she may produce! I’ve seriously considering purchasing said item but am trying to figure out what natural disaster I’d be preparing for — think these bad boy storms will make it to the Northwest?
>I know what you mean. I can’t stop watching everything on the cable news networks. But my husband and I handle it a little differently. Have you ever noticed that a new star is born on the cable news networks with every one of the major crisis? Hurricane Katrina gave us Anderson Cooper, 911 gave us that one guy on CNN. I wonder who will shine this time. In seriousness, I wish everyone the best down on the gulf and hope they are safe through this.
>In all seriousness, your particular brand of crazy aside, lots of thoughts and prayers are going to be dedicated to those in Gustav’s path.
>Nashville had better be fine, it’s where we’ve evacuated to (from NOLA).
>We live in Tampa and every single hurricane out there is always “headed straight for us”. We haven’t actually gotten hit with one in years so we’ve kind of let our guard down. Those stupid hurricane tracker maps are a joke, they look like my one year old’s crayon scribblings.Now having said this, we’re going to get obliterated next week. Thanks for jinxing me.
>does anyone else think that if you name a hurricane a boys name it should be a himmicane?
>A himmicane?! Awesome! 😀
>I live in West TN. This wasn’t a natural disaster, but a man-made one:My Dad ran out of weedkiller about half-way around the house. He hated using a weed-wacker, so he got some kerosine out of the shed and continued spraying around the house. This was in the early part Spring and he didn’t remember that the pilot light on the central unit was still lit. Yep. My brother was in the bathroom at the time, on the other side of the wall from the central unit. Bro says he saw a big fire ball out the window and took off running. He snatched up the cat and got out of the house. My Mom grabbed her purse…and her box of bills. That house may have been reduced to a pile of ash, but she was going to pay that mortgage on time. Dad had some hair singed off one calf but was otherwise fine. No damage to the house.
>Well I live in Pensacola, my husband is a FF Paramedic. While he goes in early to the fire station to “prepare” (meaning playing playstation getting their beds ready, catching up on all the movies they have not seen) and I am packing all of our important papers, pictures, clothes, food, dogs, kids, and securing the house. I have to say I was tired of running from Hurrianes. We had Ivan and Dennis. There was a lot of damage to our county, but not much to our house.So before we even knew where the storm was going I told him if it was a 2 and below I was staying put. this time we did not have to worry too much. We have had 15-25 mile hr. winds and a lot of rain.There are 4 more in the gulf so we shall see.
>I grew up on the southeastern tip of the NC coast (aka hurricane central)and, like most natives, got rather blase' about hurricanes.But the year I moved to KY? NC got hit by 2 rather nasty hurricanes. My new friends & coworkers couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't panic-stricken and out of my mind with worry about friends & family back home. I kept having to explain that you get used to hurricanes, develop a routine, and know what to do when one is coming. We never took them lightly, we just didn't see any point in panicking.Anyway, my roommate kept watching the hurricane coverage on the weather channel. And then he started invting friends over to watch me watching the coverage because I would be screaming at the TV. Like when one genius told the studion that he was "about 10 miles inland at Wrightsville Beach." Wrightsville Beach is about 2 miles across, so if he was 10 miles inland, he was smack in the middle of downtown Wilmington. Or the idiot who said "I'm on the Outer Banks and we're all alone- even the natives have left." Ok, if the NATIVES leave (which almost NEVER happens), that's a hint & a half that YOU don't need to be there. Apparently watching me rant at the TV was/is highly entertaining.That said, I do have sympathy for those still living in the storm zones. Here's hoping that they'll all be ok and only storm chasing idiots will be swept away in the winds.
>Nuthin’ wrong with being a “hurricane junkie”; I chase tornadic thunderstorms for photos and because I’ve had three concussions, and reckon a fourth is called for. When conditions here spawn mesocyclone supercell thunderstorms, while everyone else is cringing, I’m trying to figure out where to be with the camera. Guess I oughta add a helmet, but I digress ;)Keep up that disaster prep, Lindsay; one day, if the “Muthah” of all storms does make it to Nashville, you’ll be an island of preparation, surrounded by a sea of…future real estate opportunities…
>I love the HIMICANE idea, I too was struggling with Gustav being the “mother of all storms” maybe gender confusion is another risk of living in ‘Nawlins. Can’t tell the men from the women. Can’t tell when it’s time to leave I have slept with the TV for years, .CNN’s coverage of the 1st Gulf War started it. TWC- Hurricane coverage is like crack to me… My name is Mary and I’m an an addict. Where do we have the meetings?
>Ugg, I have a flight on Thursday that I can’t miss and Hurricane Hanna is scheduled to brush S. Florida that day so I’ll be tuned into the coverage.
>Guess everyone has to have a hobby. Could be that whirling cloud pattern… hypnotic! We do have the occasional tornado, so it’s not a totally irrational–er, whimsical response. But in reality your skills in preparing for a hurricane here in Tennessee are about as vital as the expertise of those guys who seem to think they’re about to get a request for advice from the sidelines of any game they happen to be watching on ESPN. ; )I suppose in addition to her daddy’s profession and her recent debut as a TV personality, this obsession or yours will make your little girl’s future career as a meteorologist inevitable. Might as well give her a Lite Brite and let her start practicing filling up the screen with pretty colors and uttering to-the-minute dire warnings of (gasp!) RAIN in small local towns no one’s ever heard of (“this cloud will pass over Bugtussle at 4:10, Frogbottom at 4:13, Custer’s Holler at 4:15…”).