Death, Destruction, and Shrieking TV Weathertwinks

Fay is out to get me. I made fun of it last week when it was supposedly a dissipating “invest,” and just to spite me, it has turned into a tropical storm, and last night it even made a sudden turn to the north, taking it closer to Miami. It LUNGED at me.

It’s very clear that this is all about me. I don’t care. I remain defiant. Al Gore is a kook. Global warming is a scam. I refuse to put up shutters. I am not buying a ridiculous generator.

It’s actually a good thing, the jog to the north. It means Fay will hit Florida sooner, away from a major city, and it will go over land and dissipate on its way north.

I pity the chronic stoners and federal fugitives fine people who live in the Keys. They don’t seem too worried about storm surge, but they still have to deal with evacuations and so on, and Key West is going to get fracased up about 2 1/2 months before tourist season.

It amazes me how the TV people love to scare us. Today I saw a warning: “TORNADOES POSSIBLE IN SOUTH FLORIDA.” Uh…tornadoes are ALWAYS possible when a tropical cyclone goes by. Hello?

Looks like we’re not going to get much lightning. That’s good. When the winds are below hurricane strength, they don’t have much effect on our primitive Florida Power & Light power grid. It’s the lightning that gets you. It melts the duct tape holding the system together. So it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll lose my precious few remaining prime steaks.

The weather people are freaking out, as usual. What they’re really saying is, “PAY US MORE AND STOP THINKING OF US AS THE RODEO CLOWNS OF TV JOURNALISM.” Weathermen tend to be gay; maybe that contributes to the drama. I saw some local guy today talking about HIGH WINDS AND TORRENTIAL RAIN. I can see out a window right now. The sky is a little grey, it is not raining, and the air is absolutely calm. Let’s check the marine forecast. Seas 4 to 6 feet. You can actually take a boat out in that, although the lightweights would heave over the side. Seas like that are pretty much normal in the winter. Tonight they’re supposed to peak at 9-11 feet, which is not very impressive. To give you an idea of what 4 to 6 is like here, my rule is that I won’t fish if the forecast goes past 2 to 4 unless there’s a tournament on.

It’s weird; in the open Atlantic off the Bahamas, a couple of hundred miles east of here, six-foot seas are rolly and pleasant. I’ve taken a 13-foot Boston Whaler out in heavy seas off Eleuthera, and I was fine. Here, the peaks of the waves are much closer together, so a six-foot sea will beat you to death.

I’m glad I won’t have a week of interesting hurricane blogging for you. Nothing is worse than losing your electricity in Miami in August. I still remember sitting indoors after Katrina, absolutely motionless, watching one drop of sweat after another drip off the tip of my nose. When Rita came through in October, the small difference in heat and humidity made it seem almost pleasant.

I think the most irritating thing about storms is watching rookie news people fresh from the Northeast interview seasoned Florida residents. These guys are supposed to be the experts, and they clearly know absolutely nothing. “Hurricane Beavis is supposed to pass within 400 miles of Port St. Lucie, yet none of these residents has bothered constructing a bomb shelter or switching to snow tires. Oh, Shep. When will they learn?” They keep badgering people on camera, trying to get them to–I don’t know–do cartwheels or something. You know what? It’s going to rain, and the wind is going to blow. Get over it.

One thing concerns me. Do I have enough homebrew to make it through the crisis? Generally, when a hurricane hits, I put a Corny keg in the same cooler with my food. This time I may be down to a gallon of beer. Talk about poor preparation.

I’m not going to bitch about the storm moving closer. It would be nice for me if it moved west and went up the Gulf, but I don’t want someone else to get a Category 4 so I can avoid a tropical storm. And the last thing we need is wind near our oil rigs. It has no real effect, but the oil speculators don’t care. They would make the most of it.

I have to go do my preparations, which consist of moving a ladder indoors and shoving some potted peppers around. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it only means I have been swept up to the land of Oz, where Hillary Clinton will try to poison me with poppies.