Another Scary, Forgettable Hurricane

Not that I'm complaining, but once again, like a repelling magnet, another enormous, powerful hurricane is being deflected away from the Florida coast. This one is called "Irene" and, after successive trajectories over the past few days keep placing it slightly more east, now they have it barely touching upon the U.S. mainland at places like Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and coastal New England. The storm's maximum sustained winds around its eye keep increasing, at this writing being 115 mph. It is still only in the middle of the Bahamas and is moving pretty slowly right now. A meteorologist on The Weather Channel pointed out that even without a direct hit, Irene could be one of the most devastating storms to hit the northeastern U.S. in decades due to its large size. But if it keeps tracking eastward, weakens and shrinks as hurricanes inevitably do when they reach colder waters up north, and speeds up on its course (another likely occurrence), this dire prediction may also come to naught. Hopefully. Right now I'm a little more concerned for the folks in far eastern North Carolina than I am for points further up north. Still, states all up the eastern coast from North Carolina to Maine (and Canada beyond) need to take necessary hurricane preparations to help avert any disaster scenario.

When I was a kid in south Florida, I was always fervently hoping for hurricanes to hit us and consequently give me some time off from school, which I generally hated. Alas, after Betsy hit in 1965 no large storm hit the area throughout my primary and secondary "career". After I "retired", David scared a lot of people in 1979 and Andrew devastated the area in 1992. But by that time in my life I was hoping for those storms to miss...

It will be interesting, after all of the modifications in Irene's projected path, to see where it actually goes and how hard its fury affects the closest states as it passes by. Of course, those living right on the coast will have to evacuate to avoid storm surge. Still,I predict and hope that there will just be some minor-to-moderate wind damage, little flooding, and heavy rains for a few hours and then those conditions will subside. But then again, I'm not a meteorologist; the damned hurricane could fool everyone and start tracking more to the west, anyway...