Hurricane

Between the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, when driving rain pelted our tent but we stayed dry thanks to a $25.00 tarp, and news coverage of Hurricane Ian smashing across Florida as I write, I’ve been coincidentally reading a timely book. Let me recommend Scott Huler’s “Defining the Wind: the Beaufort Scale, and how a 19th-century admiral turned science into poetry.” More a ramble through relevant history than a technical manual--no calculus required-- Huler’s book focuses on the Beaufort Scale to look at the developing science of weather prediction from many sides. What’s engaging about the Beaufort Scale—or scales, because there have been several versions--is how they rank wind by observable phenomena. Remember that measuring tools were not so ubiquitous until recently, and “30 miles an hour” doesn’t mean a whole lot without a reference. “Reduction of sail necessary” made sense to any sailor. “Large branches move, telegraph wires whistle” made sense to anybody in town.

Where I live, the scale might read something like this:

0.     Calm. Islanders awakened in the middle of the night by peculiar silence. People find it startling and remark to neighbors on the lack of wind.

1.     Light air. High probability of thick fog, meaning no mail flight. People run out of milk.

2.     to 5. It really doesn’t make any difference.  

6.     Strong breeze. Summer temperatures 25 degrees below the mainland. Difficult to cut up cardboard boxes outdoors at recycling.

7.     Tropical storm force. Ferries cancelled. County Emergency Management issues notice that laundry on the line will require extra clothespins.

8.   Blustery. Tree limbs threaten power lines. Old guys remark, “It might blow some, later.”

9.   Nasty. Ocean surface “feather-white.” A few guys go to haul anyway. Red dahlias are knocked down.

10.  Screeching gale. Air service can deliver groceries only if wind is directly from the north. Nobody but Mike Falconeri likes flying in this stuff.

11.  Snotty. Roof shingles in road. Lineman can’t sleep. Ferry wharf is under water, outboard skiffs threatened. People who have no responsibilities think it’s cozy and charming.

12.  You cannot leave and no help can get here. People make lame joke about Alcatraz. Islanders bake cookies.

But I am not making fun of a hurricane. Here’s what I learned at FEMA Hurricane School and at disaster preparedness training over the years: the water always wins.

The water… always…wins.

Some trivia from the Weather Channel folks as they reported on Hurricane Ian last week: “A cubic yard of water weights about 1700 pounds.” A meteorologist covering Ian commented, “You can hide from the wind, but you’d better run from the water.”

Here’s a thought for those folks who don’t believe the advice to evacuate before a hurricane applies to them: no firefighter or police officer, no EMT or paramedic, no emergency management staffer or Red Cross volunteer or Coast Guard member or neighbor with a bass boat has signed up to die for you just because you didn’t get out of danger because “The cat doesn’t like to travel.” There’s enough to do with the folks who literally can’t move. Once conditions are really, really bad, rescue is sometimes impossible. Don’t blithely assume “they” will somehow get you out. Who are “they” but fellow humans, maybe with wrecked homes themselves?

The water always wins. It is rarely the wind that threatens life, unless you’re in the middle of a tornado, or something heavy falls on you. Most of the time with cyclones, it’s the water you want to worry about. It is storm surges and flash floods, rain by the foot, mudslides and dam breeches, entrapment and roads destroyed and 6 feet of the Gulf of Mexico inside the firehouse rendering the trucks useless, like they had in Naples, Florida last week.

Then, sometimes, that water becomes toxic. In some places the floods might fill with septic tankage and hog manure lagoonage and oil and gas and microbes and snakes. Alligators and eels, sea monsters and amoebic dysentery. Mostly poop, trash, and diesel fuel. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Amongst the alligators and the mud and the power lines down, there will be helpers. There are always brave people attempting to rescue, or to report out, or to improve the forecasting for the next time. There are bucket trucks from far away, there are ham radio operators relaying messages while the phones are messed up, there are volunteers delivering drinking water. There are the Hurricane Hunters, air crews who fly into the worst of the storm to get measurements. Those guys claim the motto, “We can make anybody puke.”

Society does not disintegrate when life gets rough. A few jerks lose whatever limited sense of humanity they ever had, but many will get to work. There is nothing more human than helping out.

Published in the Rockland, Maine Free Press, September, 2022