STRANGER THAN FICTION: HURRICANES MAKE CASE TO WATCH WEATHER CHANNELS

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.

The satellite picture showed the first named Atlantic hurricane of 2000 turning north in the middle of the ocean.

Sitting there on my first trip home to Missouri from Fort Lauderdale, 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 tornados. And frankly, they're not even really worried about earthquakes. Even in 1990, when Iben Browning had us all upset and everybody believed The Big One was coming, 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. We discuss hurricanes by name, almost as though they're cheap kinfolk who overstay their welcome, trash our apartment and then don't send thank-you notes.

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.

(Of course, we couldn't put a price on our two cats, Romy and Bosco, but I take comfort in knowing they'd stay away from a sopping wet palm tree even if it were covered in Tender Vittles.) 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.

Hurricane Irene was over Fort Lauderdale in October 1999 on the exact days of our job interviews here. Mr. Half's interview was in a building three blocks from our motel and took a couple of hours. Mine was a two-day, three-branch extravaganza. I showed up for every single appointment looking like a drowned rat.

I guess that's a good look for me. I got the job.

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 Nieland is a former Southeast Missourian staff writer living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Contact her at newsduo@herald.infi.net.