Our local weather people are so excited, there's a little wet stain on the front of their pants. By tomorrow, the wet stain will have migrated to the back of their pants. It's storm time, and nobody does storms better (or more extravagantly) than our local news teams.
Already, there are reporters stationed at New Jersey shore points with eyewitness reports of wind and rain. We couldn't know otherwise what wind and rain are like if we didn't have people standing in it on camera.
The local residents are flocking to the grocery stores. Why, I have no idea. We are going to be rained-in for, at the most, one day. Stores and restaurants will be closed on Sunday, so we will have to survive on the accumulated food that we can find in our pantries. Unless, of course, we manage to trip to the grocery and stock up on all sorts of things that we couldn't possibly eat in a 24-hour period. Add to that the fact that the power is likely to go down, and thousands of people will have freshly-purchased spoiled food in their refrigerators. Nice planning.
That's the main concern - the power. We need electricity, and it's odd that it is so fragile a utility that some 70mph winds could knock it out for a day or so. It's worse in the winter, where no power means we will freeze. In the late summer it means that we will not have television, which seems to be a fate worse than death.
The stores around here are sold out of D-size batteries. Apparently, every flashlight in the area is dead and the already small supply of D cells was exhausted yesterday. There are plenty of AA and AAA batteries. That's because only TV remotes run on them, and since there won't be any TV, there is no use for the remote control. Nice planning.
Hurricane Irene is rolling up the east coast and the weather forecast for Sunday says "Hurricane conditions possible. Very windy." Seriously. They are scientists.
The level of panic will only be superseded by the level of media overkill. They will be on the air most of the day Saturday and all day Sunday telling us how horrible it is - as though we couldn't figure it out ourselves by looking out the window. The wind will blow, the rain will fall and more than likely you will be spared watching any of it on television because you won't have electricity to run the blessed thing.
My advice: I echo the sentiments of John Blutarsky, who told Flounder, "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
Already, there are reporters stationed at New Jersey shore points with eyewitness reports of wind and rain. We couldn't know otherwise what wind and rain are like if we didn't have people standing in it on camera.
The local residents are flocking to the grocery stores. Why, I have no idea. We are going to be rained-in for, at the most, one day. Stores and restaurants will be closed on Sunday, so we will have to survive on the accumulated food that we can find in our pantries. Unless, of course, we manage to trip to the grocery and stock up on all sorts of things that we couldn't possibly eat in a 24-hour period. Add to that the fact that the power is likely to go down, and thousands of people will have freshly-purchased spoiled food in their refrigerators. Nice planning.
That's the main concern - the power. We need electricity, and it's odd that it is so fragile a utility that some 70mph winds could knock it out for a day or so. It's worse in the winter, where no power means we will freeze. In the late summer it means that we will not have television, which seems to be a fate worse than death.
The stores around here are sold out of D-size batteries. Apparently, every flashlight in the area is dead and the already small supply of D cells was exhausted yesterday. There are plenty of AA and AAA batteries. That's because only TV remotes run on them, and since there won't be any TV, there is no use for the remote control. Nice planning.
Hurricane Irene is rolling up the east coast and the weather forecast for Sunday says "Hurricane conditions possible. Very windy." Seriously. They are scientists.
The level of panic will only be superseded by the level of media overkill. They will be on the air most of the day Saturday and all day Sunday telling us how horrible it is - as though we couldn't figure it out ourselves by looking out the window. The wind will blow, the rain will fall and more than likely you will be spared watching any of it on television because you won't have electricity to run the blessed thing.
My advice: I echo the sentiments of John Blutarsky, who told Flounder, "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
