Years ago I was in Los Angeles when a 6 point 2 earthquake hit the city. I raced down from my hotel room in a panic and joined the other guests who had assembled in the lobby. It's all over now. But we went back to our rooms and indeed it was over except for some heavy duty cleanup and bridge reconstruction. So appropriate for California, and so different from a hurricane with its slow and ominous build up.
Hurricanes grow like good stories.
They start out innocently with those deceptively simple rain showers off the African coast. But as they move past the Cape Verde islands and into warmer waters, they begin to take a shape, a mild accumulation of power. When their pressure drops low enough and their spinning form finally becomes discernible, they are given a name. And it is this name we will know them by forever. Floyd, Gert, Andrew, Gloria, David, Opal, Hugo.