Tropical Storm Katrina

Posted on Fri 08/26/05 in South Florida

Good morning. It’s almost 5am on Friday, and storm rain bands from Tropical Storm Katrina are continuing to drop some heavy winds and flooding in South Florida.

Thanks to the brave workers of FPL, we just had our power come back on after being out for ten hours. Since we do not have a generator, I feared for the ice cream melting away in the fridge. So, I was prepared to justify eating ice cream for breakfast in order to salvage it.

My poor little doggie has been looking at me pitifully since last night, wanting badly to go out to fertilize the lawn, but, it has been too nasty to take him outside: By nightfall last night, only a couple hours since the storm had crossed land, a couple people had been killed by falling tree limbs. To supplement, I put out a pee-pee pad for and conveyed instructions to use it at will.

Since we have become pretty adept to hurricanes here in Florida, we become increasingly aware of two sure indications of the inevitable loss of power:

One: is the calm before the storm. The feeling in the air is perhaps one of the most soothing sensations one can experience. The air is cool. The wind creeps quickly between houses and around corners, softly whistling. Neighbors are making final preparations for the storm. Anticipation of something immense suggests heading indoors.

Number Two: everyone returns indoors and turns on the TV news to get a glimpse of the storm path projection. Most stations are showing the radar screens. And, even more stations are showing their idiotic newscasters huddled under a raincoat, broadcasting inaudibly from the middle of the storm. Like, they are better reporters because they are doing it IN the storm. Every station shows the same garbage:

“I am standing…. .... here in the rain duh ... in the midst of Tropical Storm Katrina… .... as you can see, it is raining and very windy…. ... you can see a few other people you mean, other idiots driving around …. LOOK! There is someone .... .... this storm… BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Then, they cut to another moron doing the same thing and saying the SAME THING! Like Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Whaaaaat is the deal?” I want to see charts and computer predictions and hot women in bikinis (well, who doesn’t?). Stuff that helps during a crisis. And, some guy standing in the rain, telling me he is in the rain, isn’t helping.

We also suffer from another product of the storm. Have you ever seen Evil Dead, the movie about five kids going to a cabin and discovering a bunch of demons who want to eat them? Well, in the beginning of the movie there is a creaking gate being shown for nearly ten minutes. My neighbor’s gate makes exactly the same sound after the wind blows it open. So, once the power went out, my wife and I laid in bed, listening to the gate blow open and closed, open and closed, open and closed; repeat about a thousand times.

Now the power is back on and I am ready to start my day. But, the gym most likely isn’t open and I’m not going to work until it is light outside, so I’ll just sit in my house and rejoice for air condition.