i was going to start with hurricane rita
but
that doesn't zoom out far enough
hurricanes
are major weather events
not unlike tornadoes
but the time scope is different
the secret is
that it is different
but
maybe not as different as it should be
more on that, later
if you live in the third coast area
you know about hurricanes
from a little kid
every year
you get the tracking charts
which are probably just on computer now
but when i was a kid
they were on the paper grocery bags
ya buyin food?
you have the hurricane scorecard
because these things happen all the time
in hurricane season
and ya gotta watch em
but ya can't get too stressed about em
because they usually don't happen
so
you're tracking
danger is immanent
again and again
until you learn
back brain awareness
front brain nonchalance
i have hurricane supplies
i check and update at the beginning of hurricane season
so
then all i need is water
and i have containers i can fill
i might go to the store to pick something up
but i don't ever really really need to
understand?!
i am prepared
now
i'm not prepared to evacuate
more on that, later
so
the hurricane wanders
you don't know where they are going to go
you have predicted pathways
but
that doesn't mean shit
the rule is that you evaculate if it's comin right at ya
but
that doesn't even always mean shit
because why
because hurricanes wander
for example, rita
it was supposed to be comin right at us
and they called for an evacuation
because they were gunshy from katrina
we are like seventy miles from the coast
it's never comin right at us
that's the major reason i never moved to galveston
those people get wiped off the map
well, not galveston
they learned from the 1900 storm and built up
but
a little town without a giant seawall
they get wiped off the map
by the time a hurricane has traveled seventy miles
over land
it's calmed down a little
they'll be damage
but
it's more like rippin your roof off
that razing the house
but
i was talkin about rita
i couldn't evaculate
i had to work late getting everyone else out
and besides i didn't have a place to go
and blah blah
i never really considered it
(see above)
so i parked my car several floors up
in the evacuation abandoned
covered parking garage
across the street
from my apartment
which had an underground parking lot
i taped the windows
i tried to keep in touch with all my people
they got in their cars
they tried to leave
they all got stranded on the highway
out of gas
sitting out
exposed
unsafe
more than a hundred deaths
from the evacuation
the hurricane
it wandered
it veered off and hit port arthur
who wasn't expecting it
and many people suffered
for me
nothing much happened
for all my people who tried to evacuate
a nightmare of semi-epic proportions
hurricane harvey
he was a little bit of unstable tropical depression
he went over the yucatan peninsula
losing form
then
he entered the gulf
reforming
after a little while
he was a full-fledged tropical storm
and they weren't sure if he was going to be
anything more than that
but then
he powered up
that was when i got a little concerned
it was too fast
every time you checked
they had some new
totally wack scenario for where he was headed
because
say it with me
hurricanes wander
so
when he finally hit land
it was rockport almost 200 miles away
and then it traveled north
the hurricane never hit us
we were on the dirty side of the storm
and it was a big storm
and it barely moved
so the bands just kept pulling up moisture from the gulf
and dumping rain
it was downgraded to a tropical storm
and it wandered
we got a lot of rain
it was scary
it was dangerous
it was like alison on steroids
for days
