Hurricanes make case for weather channel

The following column was originally published Aug. 15, 2000.

Watching The Weather Channel's computer simulation put Hurricane Alberto well away from Florida was like watching a mother carry her screaming baby past your gate at the airport.

You know you've narrowly avoided a long, irritating, potentially disastrous experience.

I was watching The Weather Channel at my in-laws' house in the greater Blodgett metropolitan region late Saturday night when I saw it and I considered how odd it was for The Other Half and me to worry about hurricanes.

We began dating in 1992, right about the time Hurricane Andrew devastated Miami, and we never had one conversation about it. We were newlyweds when Hurricane Erin blew away half of the Florida Panhandle in August 1995 and Opal arrived to blow away the other half the following October.

We never talked about them either. Honestly, I barely remember the news coverage of any of the three.

Missouri residents care about two kinds of natural disasters: earthquakes and tornadoes. And frankly, they're not even really worried about earthquakes. Even in 1991, when Iben Browning had us all upset, no measurable number of people actually packed up their belongings and permanently moved off the New Madrid Fault.

But now that we're in our fourth hurricane season as Floridians, Mr. Half and I pay considerably more attention to The Weather Channel.

He wouldn't admit it, but Mr. Half sort of likes the idea of hurricanes. It brings out the protector in him. Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, so he's buying canned goods and water about mid-May. I eat all the canned ravioli and fruit cocktail by mid-June, so he buys more.

I had to talk him out of buying a gigantic plastic tarp before our Missouri trip.

"But what if Alberto strikes while we're away and we come back Sunday to find a palm tree through our living room window?" he said.

Should that be the case, I replied, we'd gleefully collect on our $25,000 renters' insurance policy, which amounts to roughly five times the value of everything inside our apartment.

I think Mr. Half finds hurricanes so romantic because he's never been forced into one. I make my living driving around in natural disasters and looking for miserable people to interview.

The last bad one was Hurricane Georges in 1998, an extremely wet but not very windy storm that we weathered in Pensacola. I don't think I've ever felt sorrier for myself than when I sat alone in my Toyota Tercel one afternoon, almost completely soaked, eating cold canned Beanee Weenees and drinking bottled water. I was waiting for a deputy to show up and let me onto the beach.

I spent the next week walking around in sewage-laced floodwater, looking for displaced homeowners.

But here we are during another season, watching Alberto dissipate, waiting for Beryl and the other unwelcome guests.

I guess it's for the same reason Missouri residents don't leave because of the fault. We all like where we live too much to think about an earthquake breaking our heirloom china or a hurricane forcing a palm tree through our window.

And if one does, well, surely it won't happen again.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.