Fun With Fay

Hurricane Fay strengthened today as it crossed west to east from the Gulf over land in south Florida; such a storm strengthening over land is almost unheard of.

It now approaches. the Atlantic’s warm waters and threatens to curve back across the state, this time from east to west, here in North Florida with Jacksonville being the projected landfall.

Declaring a local state of emergency, Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton described Hurricane Fay as “Unpredictable, erratic, defying all odds”.

This morning, radio host Valerie Segraves, WEJZ 96.1, described Fay as, “ A lopsided, raggedy bully. She’s headed this way and she’s going to eat our lunch”.

Not mine!

Ginny’s taking the next three days off. And we have prepared as well as we are able to give ourselves the best chance. And we’ll do what we can to help others after the storm.

Our help promises to mean damn little because a minor health problem, beyond my normal dizziness, has kicked in for me and I doubt if much stumbling around in hurricane debris as a rescuer lies in my future; the professionals will have plenty of victims to worry about without my adding to the problem.

For days now the National Weather Service has issued announcements about Fay; some announcements are designated bulletins; others, warnings; others, advisories; and others, watches. Each designation means something different and tv commentators go nuts trying to explain the differences.

Radio and tv announcers have been updating weather reports every half hour.

This piling on of information leads to storm fatigue and system overload.

This afternoon, one radio announcer interrupted the song playing. He said, “I’ve just been handed two important announcements… Oh, this one is just from station management canceling Bring Your Daughter To Work Day…. This other one is from the weather service and it looks like a warning watch … or maybe it’s a watch warning”.

Ginny and I laughed till we cried.

I remember during a blizzard up in Washington, D.C., during the late 1960s, I was out driving in the ice storm on some mission of mercy (Christians do a lot of that sort of thing… Storm fodder, that’s what do-gooders are).

Anyhow it was about 3 a.m. in this monster ice storm with the wind howling and driving snow sheets straight out flat. The announcer on my car radio had been reading hazard warnings and weather updates for hours—I think he was snowbound at the station.

During a pause in the music he said, “Tonight’s weather report is for clear and still conditions…. It’s clear up to your ass and still snowing”!

Anyhow, during our regular devotional reading tonight Ginny and I came upon a Bible verse from Isaiah 30:

“For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength – And ye would not”.

I can’t decide if those words are comforting or not.