The McBournie Minute: Hurricanes really blow

When I was a kid, hurricanes sounded pretty cool. They had names like “Bob” or “Felix” or “Andrew.” They made you want to be around them so you could see the weather turn bad and watch as trees fell down. For me, it was kind of like a tornado, they seemed pretty cool from what I had heard and I hoped one day I could see one.

Late one summer I was spending a weekend at my grandmother’s summer home in the coastal town of Scituate, Massachusetts. A hurricane whose name I cannot remember was going to hit on Tuesday and I wanted to hang around, but for some reason, my parents, probably bend on ruining my childhood, would not let me stay to see the storm.

The hurricane knocked down a huge sea wall made of a pile of large rocks, causing the sea to spill into the pond behind it and eventually flooding the house. The neighbor’s wooden, double bench swing was blown away and never seen again. As a kid, all I could think was “Awesome!”

As I have grown up, I have learned that severe weather, while really, really cool, is also a bad thing. It is a bad thing because it causes a lot of damage that costs money to repair. Sometimes the damages are covered by insurance, but that just means that premiums go up for everyone.

Then Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, we all learned that hurricanes really really aren’t cool, not only because they drive up gas prices really high, but they can kill people and ruin cities. Since then our nation’s hurricane preparedness has improved greatly, thanks mostly in part to some boring PowerPoint done by Al Gore.

So I ask you this: If you live in an area where you know you are going to be hit, where authorities have called for a mandatory evacuation of your city, where officials have said you face “imminent death,” why the hell would you stay around?

We see this all the time, particularly with Hurricane Ike over the weekend. Galveston, an island that sits roughly 1.2 inches above sea level, was going to be hit hard. We all knew it, yet there were still people who chose to ride out the storm, like their presence at home would keep the water from filling their houses to the attic. Instead of evacuating, there were surfers riding the gnarly hurricane waves. And then we have to spend our tax money to save these people.

Folks, getting tossed around by a hurricane is the job of weather guys on national television. They do it for our amusement, because otherwise hurricanes are depressing. I defend your right to be stupid, but if you choose to be stupid, don’t come to me asking me to bail you out. You had your chance.

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