Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Not Fayed Away


Dude, how can a storm junkie like you not talk about Fay? Damn good question.

Fay is currently a tropical storm and seems intent on wandering all over Florida. When I left the sunshine state a few days ago, preparations were already under way. One of the last things I heard my brother say was "we can run an extension cord from the generator to run the fridge". Strange weather makes strange conversations seem normal.

Like most things that troll around the back roads of the south, tropical weather is usually chaotic, at times weirdly beneficial or psychotically evil - sometimes all three at once. You just never know whether your going to get the psychotic, gap toothed serial killer or the clumsy handy man who fixes your well after backing over your chickens.

The same stew that boils up the horror of Katrina, Hugo, Andrew and Alberto also produces three-day drought killing rain storms we so desperately need.

So let's hope our new friend Fay is the the hapless helper and not the creeping killer. Still better hide the chickens though.

5 comments:

Sara said...

Several of the models have it going back into the gulf...that could be a really big problem.

griftdrift said...

doubtful

rptrcub said...

Following up on your comment on my blog in re Alberto in '94: yup, I was 13 at the time. The first time I saw real, true poverty when my parents made us volunteer at a Red Cross shelter. It was, in retrospect, a preview of Katrina, except fewer people died and some people were actually able to get out. Also volunteered at First Methodist Church, too, where I met a man who hid with his wife in the attic after being trapped by the flood. His wife died while he waited there for rescue, and he was there for a few days with her body.

I was also amazed at the number of goodhearted, but dimwitted, people who donated Clorox 2 for cleanup purposes. BLEACH, people. Regular bleach you'd use for your whites.

griftdrift said...

Which side of the river were you on? I was on the east side in some gymnasium. I stayed in Ashburn and drove back and forth for the first week. The first two days were 12 hours of endless lines of people needing assistance. We didn't get across the river until week 2. The devestation was mind boggling. Houses with water marks all the way up to the windows all the way up to Slappey. I was there for four weeks. Will never forget it.

rptrcub said...

We were on the west side, living off of Gillionville Road near Darton College and near the MCLB canal. We were fortunate to be dry and on relatively higher ground but had our stuff packed up at a moment's notice. They evacuated many people in the low-lying projects and in parts of the west side which got flooded/houses falling into limestone sinks -- we tried to help the folks the best we knew how.

It is, in my mind, the dividing line between my childhood and the rest of growing up.