Historic Proportions

That’s the phrase the forecasters are using to describe Hurricane Sandy. If on the Perfect Storm scale, the 1991 New England event was a Perfect 10, this could be a Perfect 11, or so they say.

I grew up in New York City, and the whole notion of almost 400,000 people being evacuated is a completely foreign concept to me. The only hurricane I remember directly impacting us in Manhattan was Donna. It seemed like a big deal then, but I was young.

The T-shirts tell us (bleep) happens, and our modern (bleep) threshold is pretty low. Where I live, the TV stations go into frenetic STORMWATCH mode if a couple inches of rain threaten. But many of us can pass a lifetime without every witnessing a real cataclysm.

Crater Lake is a beautiful spot in Oregon visited by many tourists. The water fills an old volcanic caldera. The volcano, called Mt. Mazama, erupted thousands of years ago. I read once where this enormous blast covered parts of western North America in feet – FEET – of volcanic ash. But our continent was relatively unpopulated. There were no Eyewitness News teams around to record what happened. The most we have are stories passed down through oral tradition, and whatever after-the-fact evidence scientists are able to collect.

For those who can’t live without their adrenaline fix, the Weather Channel has a show called “It Could Happen Tomorrow.” The fact is, it already has. Just as an aside, the 18th and 19th centuries brought major earthquakes to Boston and to Charleston, South Carolina.

(Bleep) really did seem to happen in the 19th century. A huge earthquake rocked not California, but the central part of the country, along Missouri’s New Madrid fault in 1811 -- again, a relatively unpopulated area, but the quake caused the Mississippi River to run backwards. In 1859, the worst recorded solar flare ever to hit the Earth caused telegraph wires to burn up. A similar flare hitting the Earth the same way today would cause a Biblical-level catastrophe. We wouldn’t need hacker terrorists to wipe out our electrical grid. The sun would have done that for us.

For most of us alive today, the standout natural cataclysmic event may be the Japanese earthquake of 2011, which killed tens of thousands and triggered a devastating tsunami and a nuclear disaster. Contrast that with last night’s partiers gathering on Hawaiian beaches to witness a tsunami a few INCHES high.

As for cataclysmic events, they actually happen all the time, but the slower-moving ones sometimes escape our notice, especially if we’re not directly affected. Famine. Drought. Climate change. The virus-du-jour. But it also seems most cataclysmic events aren’t Mother Nature’s fault. We’re much better at doing these things to ourselves. War. Recession/depression, you name it.

(Bleep) is always going to happen. The story really isn’t about the (bleep); it’s about how we react to it. Sometimes we react well; other times we freak out.

But so far, one thing seems to be constant: We survive.

Naming Winter Storms

I woke up this morning to hear the meteorologists on the Weather Channel saying that in the coming season, they’re going to be assigning names to winter storms. Just like hurricanes, a storm of sufficient intensity will be given a name. This is more than a game. The Weather Channel people feel that naming the storms will heighten public awareness about them and encourage both emergency managers and average citizens to take them seriously, just as they would an approaching hurricane, as these winter storms can cause just as much hardship

I don’t think I have a problem with that argument. It’s about the names: ATHENA, BRUTUS, CAESAR, DRACO, EUCLID, FREYR, GANDOLF, HELEN, IAGO, JOVE, KHAN, LUNA, MAGNUS, NEMO, ORKO, PLATO, Q, ROCKY, SATURN, TRITON, UKKO, VIRGIL, WALDA, XERXES, YOGI, ZEUS.

A couple of things stand out here. Many of the names come from Greek mythology. When you think winter storms, is Greece the first place that comes to mind? Not. When you do winter storms, you’ve got to think Scandinavian, Nordic or Wagnerian, and there are only a couple of such offerings here. How about Helga? Brunhilde? Ulle? Liv? Gerhard? Wolf? I could go on, but do you really want me to? (And BTW, why were the Irish left out?)

If there’s Rocky, there should at least be Bullwinkle. And how are you going to feel when Orko bears down on you? Or Q (didn't Mr. Bond need him)?

If we start this, where is it going to end? Will they name desert sandstorms, or tornados, or hot spells? Or train wrecks and traffic accidents? “The 101’s closed right now, thanks to Tom.” This should be done very sparingly.

I’ve known young couples expecting babies who practically get into fistfights trying to agree on what they’re going to name the new arrivals. Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.

Surprising Isaac

I’ve been fortunate, as a DirecTV customer, to be able to follow live wall-to-wall coverage from TV stations in New Orleans on the approach, arrival, and aftermath of Hurricane Isaac. “Only a Cat 1,” some said, many of them taking officials’ calls for evacuation of low-lying areas as suggestions rather than orders.

Even with “mandatory” evacuation orders, though, the authorities cannot force you to leave your home. I’ve often said that people who live in a mandatory evacuation area should be sent a bill if they don’t leave and public safety folks have to rescue them.

OK, that’s a little harsh. The fact is, while it’s assumed that people stay behind just because it’s inconvenient to move and they think they can ride out the emergency, there’s usually a much better reason for staying: they don’t want to leave their pets – which perhaps means authorities should give pets a higher priority in these situations.

Isaac, of course, was not Katrina. What it lacked in strength, it made up for in tenacity, hanging around Louisiana for days, dumping incredible amounts of rain on populated areas.

So you might wonder why people insist on living in these areas? If they lose their homes to a hurricane, well, that comes with the territory, or so the argument goes. Fact is, there really is no perfect place to live in the United States. The East and the Midwest get the winter’s cold and crippling blizzards. The South has humidity, bugs and in some cases, alligators. The West Coast has relatively little “real weather,” but like the rest of California, it’s prone to earthquakes. Desert residents trade the rain and snow for incredible summer heat. I’m trying to come up with what’s wrong with Hawaii, but I’m sure there’s something.

In any case, you learn a lot about how local media cover disaster situations, and through them, how people react, how public officials behave and the things they didn’t think of, who the heroes and villains are, and just how long it takes to return to something called “normal.”

Again, thanks to DirecTV for providing their hurricane information channel (and hey, if I convert you to become a customer and get credit for the referral, I think I’m supposed to get $100. I believe in full disclosure).