Hurricane Madness in Florida: August 30, 2019

Even though Hurricane Dorian is many miles away from Florida (and may not even make it here at all), everyone I've encountered today has shown some form of hurricane madness.

What are the buying/hoarding symptoms of hurricane madness?

• You buy every last gallon of water in Publix/Wawa/Aldi/Walmart/anywhere you can drive your car.
• When the stores run out of gallons, you buy every last 24-pack, 12-pack, and 6-pack of water.
• You scoop up all batteries, whatever size, even if you can't use them. Just in case.
• You take any gas containers you have/can buy and go to Wawa/RaceTrac/Speedway, or wherever to fill them and put them in the garage--a fire hazard and probably against fire code, but so what?

  

  Speedway Gas, NOT pre-hurricane. There will be snaking lines of cars, trucks, campers, and lawn -care trailers the minute the word "hurricane"is spoken.

• You panic because you never bought a generator, or it's broken, or it needs a good cleaning because you haven't used it since Hurricane Andrew. Plus you have no fuel for it.
• Then you panic because your homeowner's insurance does not cover flooding, so if the hurricane triggers flooding (which it will), you won't be covered. You try to buy it now, but can't, as the market shuts down when there is a hurricane. 
• You buy enormous sheets of plywood, which you may or may not use to cover your windows. Just in case.
• You buy rolls of masking tape to tape your windows instead, though most people say taping the windows does nothing to protect them--it only makes a mess.
• You fill all the bathtubs, noting that they could use a good scrub, but not now.
• You buy a kerosene lamp, but have no kerosene and only a vague idea where to buy it. Maybe lamp oil will work, but the store either does not carry lamp oil or the clerk tells you with tolorant amusement that he sold the last bottle of lamp oil two days ago.

What are the social symptoms of hurricane madness?

• You try hard to be polite but find yourself snapping at the mildest remark, like "I was here first" in line at Aldi's, though she was most certainly not here first--you were. Yet you allow her, with gritted teeth, to go first, just to show good manners.
• You tell perfect strangers your life story in the Aldi's checkout line, sort of like people in a lifeboat or a very turbulent flight. "Let my story live!" is how you feel.
• You reach out on social media, but since no one knows if the hurricane will come your way, you can only say vague things. Your friends offer vague consolation, except the cousin who lives in California who offers to put you up if the hurricane comes. Ha-ha, by the time you know the hurricane is coming to you, there are no seats left on any flights. Then the airports shut down, anyway.
• You plot a driving course that gets you away from all threats on one tank of gas, in case the gas stations on the highway runs out of gas, which they will. The problem is that everybody is plotting that same course, leading to gridlock on the highways.
• You try to book a room on-line but can't find one closer than 250 miles away, in Podunk, Alabama. You book it anyway, meaning that some poor soul driving through Podunk, coming in off the highway with three crying kids and a dog, can't stay at that motel--all the rooms are reserved. Then you cancel it that night because the hurricane prediction changed.

And as long as you have power and the Internet, you obsessively check online to see if anyone knows what the hurricane is actually doing right now. You know that by the time the hurricane is definitely coming you won't have power (unless your generator works) or internet service, so what you're doing now is some superstitious activity that has no value except to show the universe you tried to stay informed, as if that will keep you safe from rain, wind, no power, no internet, and no cell service when you really need it.

My go-to for hurricane info is NOAA, the US government website I trust most. It has some colorful maps illustrating various ways to predict Dorian's coming, though making sure to tell you repeatedly that no one knows if this is in any way correct:

1. The Warning/Cone map (interactive): points straight at Orlando and even helpfully labels Orlando, in case Dorian gets confused.
2. (By the way, the static version of the warning cone shows the hurricane coming on Wednesday, while the arrival of winds is on Sunday. Yikes!!! Three days of hurricane winds before the hurricane!)
3. Wind Force: 70-90 miles an hour, with a helpful note that there can be gusts much stronger than predicted. To me, 70-90 sounds like plenty of force.
4. Arrival of winds: sometime on Sunday to Central Florida, it appears.
5. Rainfall potential: only about 10", not very unusual for Florida without a hurricane.

These are today's symptoms. We don't even know yet if the hurricane will come anywhere near us. so we prepare, while all around us the news media is screaming gloom and doom, the governor has declared a state of emergency, schools and colleges are closing, and hospitals are staffing up. Our nerves get stretched to the limit--honestly, the madness itself is enough to make you vow to move away from Florida and never come back. Of course, once the madness is past and the sun comes out, you forget that vow.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/