I’ve never had second-sight – at least, not in the way I think of it. I don’t have premonitions of disaster, I’ve never found treasure buried by a miserly former property-owner, and I can’t solve a crime by touching the murder weapon. So why, when I read that a tropical depression is forming up in the Bahamas, does my stomach clench?
Tropical Depression 18. Sounds perfectly innocuous in the abstract, but hurricane watches have gone up already for the Florida Keys, and if things progress as currently predicted, TD 18 will become Hurricane Rita. From there, it just gets scary. CNN said,
Forecasters said the storm’s projected path would take it through the Straits of Florida between South Florida from Cuba. By Wednesday morning, the storm could become a hurricane and move into the Gulf of Mexico.
People in Florida will absolutely understand this situation, and my helpless horror. They took it in the teeth again and again last year, and they’re still reeling. Yet as terrible as the damage was (and is) there, if New Orleans takes even a glancing blow, I can hardly begin to imagine the consequences.
As it happens, the National Hurricane Center currently projects the landfall to be in Texas. But as everybody along the Gulf Coast knows, hurricanes are capricious, and there’s no telling what this may (or may not!) become. I’m not panicky yet – I’ve lived too many years with hurricane threats to think the sky is falling every time it rains. I guarantee, though, that I’m keeping my eye on this one.
Follow Me