Tag: hurricane matthew

You dead?

No more than usual.

Let’s call today a win, then.

1.

The wind sounds like the ocean, which also want to kill you.

2.

A hurricane starts off North Africa, born out of the dust of the Sahara, and grows fat off the warm summer surface water; fat: I’m a hundred miles away from the eye of this particular storm and my entire evening’s ruined. Hurricanes are temporary mountains made from weather: you have to figure for them in your plans. Utterly unignorable; most weather, you don’t have to give a shit about, but hurricanes demand your attention. There’s a reason they put them on maps.

3.

Hurricanes began getting names in 1953, and stopped only getting women’s names in 1979. (My favorite part of the past, which was terrible, is how often shittiness was official. People are still very shitty to each other constantly, but most of the official, written-down policies are explicitly non-shitty. Oh, and while I’m on my social justice high horse: this is usually the place where I mention that the rest of the world does something differently, or calls it something else, but hurricanes only happen in America and the Caribbean, which is America’s lake.)

Most of the names have been solid and recognizable ones–Matthew comes to mind–but some have been odd, like the storm in 1971 that killed ten in Haiti, Vaginismus. The guy who thought up “John, But A Lady” in ’77 must have been on some sort of chemical.

There has never been a hurricane named Adolf.

4.

I’m watching the storm from space, in real-time. This is what it looks like:

I’m the little circle in the middle. Matthew has swooped up the through the islands and now–right at this instant–he’s stalling a little, in fact the northern edge of his eye is decohering a tad. He keeps jogging east, but without the accompanying rise to the north that would make me happy. (Until the fucker loops back on us next week, if the scientists and computers are right.)

Radar app, plus Twitter feed, plus the teevee news, which I had to look away from: all three networks–and this is really the only remaining need for local television–are covering the storm without commercials, and have been all day. Some of the broadcasters are beginning to look a bit haggard. But the information is most certainly available.

There used to be a job called weather spotting. Guy in a boat, he’d look for storms. And if he saw one, he would tell you. That was the best humanity could do until 1960. The first weather satellite was called TIROS, and it was launched in 1960. Before that: a guy in a boat. Everyone loves astronauts, but think of the millions of lives weather satellites have saved.

A hurricane is impressive, but so is the ability to see it coming.

6.

Who noticed I skipped 5?

7.

More names never used for hurricanes: Flumbert, Smeagol, Adolfina, Cherry Fanta.

8.

Blizzards don’t get names, though. That’s Weather Channel branding/propaganda. It’s propabranda. Those are not official names those radar-fetishists over there slap on every snowstorm big enough to close down Queens.

Now, some winter storms get names after they happen, if they’re big enough, or kill enough people,  or at a weird time of year, or something else notable. And they get named sensible things like “the Blizzard of 1888” or “the Christmas Blizzard” or “the Schoolhouse Blizzard.” (Do not look that last one up, trust me.)

And then the Weather Channel starts fucking around. Look at this bullshit:

A few of the winter storm names used by March 2013 include Athena, Brutus, Caesar, Gandolf, Khan, and Nemo.

Did you see that bullshit? That is some bullshit right there. Fuck you, Weather Channel.

Milk And Bread I don’t care if you’re lactose intolerant and on the Atkins diet: you get some milk and bread, mister. Can’t hunker without milk and bread. You could shelter in place, but people who shelter in place are worse than smelly animals. Be a hunkerer.

Semantic Satiation Semantic satiation is what happens when you repeat a word over and over until it loses meaning and just sounds like a silly noise, and it can help us in our hunkering. It is time to hunker only when you have heard newscasters say the word so many times that you lose it and start giggling even though there are alligators hitting the front door at 90 mph.

Inside or Outside? What? That’s the stupidest fucking question/topic header I’ve ever seen. Inside. You literally cannot hunker outside. Hunkering requires a structure, and for you to be within it. Don’t be a dumb-dumb.

Flying Witches That’s a tornado, schmuck.

What About Tornadoes? No idea. Go to the root cellar? Round up the herd? Tornadoes are a middle-of-the-country problem, and I have only dealt with sides-of-the-country problems. Hurricane, nor’easter, earthquake, snowpocalypse: these events I am prepared for. Tornadoes are not a Jewish weather.

Ultra-Light Aircraft Possibly the worst place to hunker down. It would be better to just stand out in a field, honestly, because the wind is going to pick the ultra-light up and slam you into a house six blocks away.

Las Vegas Opposite of Ultra-light aircraft: best location for hunkering. First off: it’s in the middle of the desert, so there’s not a hurricane; your hunker would be completely voluntary. Second: choice of activity during your hunker. A good hunk of hunkering is staving off the boredom that inevitably leads to cannibalism, but it is tough to be bored in Vegas. Appalled, disgusted, intoxicated: easy. If you’re bored in Vegas, then it’s your fault.

Supplies Milk and bread. We went over this.

Supplies Beyond Milk And Bread Batteries in every size, including the one for Uncle Stu’s hearing aid. If you’re hunkering against a hurricane, then that means you’re probably in Florida, so you’ll want weapons. Generator and gasoline (this will facilitate your post-hunker rise as a warlord). Phillips-head screwdriver.

Funniest Word That Rhymes With Hunker Spelunker.

By this time tomorrow, Enthusiasts, I shall surely be dead, or at least damp. Probably dead: a Category 4 hurricane named Matthew is on its way to Fillmore South, having already rampaged through Haiti like the Clinton Foundation in one of your uncle’s Facebook posts. In the Dominican Republic, numerous statues of Sammy Sosa were knocked over. Cubans fled for reasons other than Communism. Puerto Rico was fine, as it turns out to not be anywhere near those other islands I mentioned.

Matthew barrels down, unstoppable and sopping: the winds attract all the attention, but the storm surge is the real weapon of a hurricane. The reason the eye of a storm is the eye is pressure. The calm, circular center of a hurricane has way lower air pressure than the roiling carousel of death surrounding it. This wouldn’t mean anything over land, but over water the eye’s low pressure causes it to raise the sea level like a 100-mile wide drinking straw. Exact same principle. So, when it hits land, the storm surge comes with it, an enormous, slow-moving wave that could be 20 or 30 feet high. If the thunder don’t get you, then the lightning will.

TotD does not have a beach place, Enthusiasts, but like I said: probably dead. For others, I share these facts about hurricanes:

• Hurricanes were invented in 1632 by an Italian inventor named Erasmus Umbrelladella.
• The tradition of naming storms started in 1971; the first one was “Francine, that bitch ex-wife of mine” and then Gary wasn’t allowed to name hurricanes any more.
• The word “hurricane” is derived from the Taino word huaricano, which means “why won’t you go back to Europe and leave us alone?”
• Why not a himmicane, you misogynist?
• Milk and bread are to a hurricanes what cookies are to Santa: offerings to the gods.

Finally, a hurricane is graded from 1-5, which is storm-shaming, but we’ll overlook that for now. What can you expect from each category?

1. Pussy shit right here. You know that TotD prefers not to use gendered insults, but I don’t know of another word in the language that fits here: Category 1 hurricanes are pussies. I’ve been through three or four of them, and if you hadn’t told me it was a hurricane, then I wouldn’t have known. If you die in a Cat. 1, then it was your fault.
2. A Cat. 2 is a hurricane like Brown is an Ivy League school: technically. With a storm surge of between five and ten feet, and winds of under 100 mph, a Cat. 2 is a disappointment to its parents and the community as a whole. Everyone expected so much, and all that happens is a couple deck chairs get knocked over and maybe some sewers back up.
3. This one’s your dangerous one: a Category 3 storm is ambitious. It can see the top, and will step on anyone who gets in its way, just like Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls. Also, some Cat. 3 hurricanes are were-hurricanes, so if you get hit on a full moon, then you’re going to die.
4. What you think when you think “hurricane.” Big chunks of seafront land washed away, cars hurled across highways, mobile homes floating away: the whole shmear. Boats on people’s lawns, and buses in rivers: lots of stuff where it’s not supposed to be. Tremendously entertaining television to watch, especially when they make poor Al Roker go outside in a slicker while the storm weaponizes palm trees directly behind him. (I love watching weathermen suffer during catastrophic storms as much as the next guy, but one of those toothy fuckers is going to die one of these days.)
5. Hell, if Hell were wet and fast. Ever since Dante and Milton, we’ve pictured Hell as a location with fire and poking, but  what if Hell were a thing that was very wet and fast? Because that’s what a Category Five is. I don’t even want to joke about one, actually: like I said, I don’t have a beach place, but I’m not eight miles from the ocean. Category Five comes and I leave or die.

That ended cheerfully.

I want the Enthusiasts to miss me, for tomorrow I shall be dead.

Sure.

Probably.

Right.

Hey, Hurricane Matthew. Whatcha doing?

“Florida, baby! It’s the season!”

Great.

“Gonna see all my friends.”

Who are your friends?

“Zika, Flakka, Governor Scott.”

Sure.

“Good buddy, the governor. Great guy. We got this little bet going.”

What?

“Who can fuck up Florida the worst.”

Who’s winning?

“Well, he’s in the lead right now, but it’s Matthew’s turn to shine now. And by ‘shine,’ I mean kill a couple dozen people and cause a few hundred million in property damage.”

What else do you want to do in Florida?

“Orlando.”

Obviously.

“Wizarding World of Harry Potter, man. I’m huge in the Potter fandom: you should check out my Tumblr.”

No.

“Gonna hit Miami.”

Art Basel?

“Of course.”

Awesome. Any chance you can, you know: not? Please don’t come here. Make a right turn, please.

“Oh, I made a right turn years ago.”

…

You’re voting–

“MAGA, fucker!”

–for Trump. Of course you are.

“He’s saying what I think.”

Which is?

“‘I want everyone to die horribly.'”

Dammit.