Oh Goody... A Tropical Storm

Tropical Storm Beryl takes aim on poor little Monponsett. If you want to go for the Full Smurf Experience, I'm about at the little notch where Cape Cod meets mainland Massachusetts. just above Martha's Vineyard.

Don't waste too much time worrying about Thumper, though... I'm on a hill, and this looks to be no worse than a powerful nor'easter. My bay rarely gets waves, and it takes a true monster storm like 1938's Great New England Hurricane (known to NYers as "the Long Island Express") to wreck houses on Buh-Bay.

There's a chance that it will swing south and east of us, too. Unless there's a lot of lightning, I'll try to get outside to get some pics of it. It's not like this is Katrina or anything... and Smurfs don't scare easy.

I love storms. While an Ahhhnold movie or a scary news story doesn't frighten me, a tropical storm has that "I'm coming to get you" aspect that 9-11 lacked for me.

I was teaching in Boston on 9-11. The kids had behaved well first period, and they had all finished a rather ambitious assignment I gave them... so I took them out for a smoke. We liked to lie on our backs in the grass near the pier and- no joke- watch the airplanes. While I have no way to know for sure, I'm pretty sure that we watched both of the doomed flights go over us.

Shortly after, I was checking some AOL stuff during my off period, when one of the kids in the computer room suddenly went "Oh, sh*t!" I checked his comp.... and sure enough, there was a plane hitting the WTC. My first thought was "drug-test the pilots harder." Then #2 hit, and I knew we were at war with someone.... and that this particular someone wasn't playing by the rules.

The next few hours were spent calling parents, and dismissing the children. Anticipating that the traffic would really suck in a few hours, we elected to split the kids up among the staff and drive them home ourselves. Stuck in traffic, with a baby in my belly (Gabrielle... I was about 2 months preggers at the time) and a car full of kids who I had to get home.... that was when 9-11 really hit home for me. We were a car full of kids looking up in the sky, wondering when the next jet was going to drop.

Once I had dropped off the last of my urban kids, things eased up a bit. The last kid (who lived in Easton, near Mo Vaughn) and I were able to haul ass down Route 24, cranking pro-war music (Search and Destroy, Let The Bodies Hit The Floor, War Pigs, etc...) as we got further and further away from that big target that Boston appeared to be.

Soon I was in Monponsett, which has nothing to upset even the angriest terrorist. I really couldn't see Osama pointing at a map and saying "We must destroy Halifax, Massachusetts!" Once I was home, the terror of 9-11 was pretty much over... and my thoughts turned to the poor victims, and the families of those victims.

After stuff like that, a tropical storm is small change. It may even miss us- I'm waiting for Channel 7 to commit themselves to a forecast, so that I can begin preparing for whatever the exact opposite of their forecast is. I can remember Harvey Leonard before the Halloween storm in 1991.... "Hurricane Grace is way out to sea, no problem, you may see a little wind." 12 hours later, my house was gone.

Beryl doesn't seem to have that kind of moxie, and my primary feelings toward her are "Bring it on, b*tch! Let's see what you got!" Maybe I'll eat those words, but I'll try to get out and get some pics if I can.

 

Some Cape Cod hurricane facts:

- Cape Cod gets brushed or hit by a hurricsne/tropical storm every 5.6 years.

- We get a direct hit every 33.75 years

- We're "due" for a direct hit from one by 2010.

- The last official one to hit us was Hermine in 2004, which brushed us with 40 mph winds.

- We rarely get a big, Katrina-like category 4 or 5 storm.

- Pilgrim records speak of a 1635 beast that broke "hundred thousands of trees."

 

Other storms of note include:

- The Great New England Gale of 1815, which occurred before the word "hurricane" had become common in American English. I can't find the link, but Governor Winthrop of the Pilgrims used a poorly-spelled version of the word to describe the 1635 storm. This storm was noted for destroying the bridge over the Neponset River in Dorchester.

- 1821 and 1893 also brought monster storms to New England.

- We took shots in 1944 (the Great Atlantic Hurricane) and 1954 (Hurricane Edna). If you like the seawall look that the South Shore towns like Duxbury and Scituate have, thank these two storms. Old timers in Duxbury told me that the seawall was finished maybe a week before Edna hit.

- We just missed getting a true whallop in 1961, as 120 mph Hurricane Esther turned south of us. This is notable because the storm was battled by cloud seeding, a now-discontinued practice of dumping what I believe is dry ice into the center of the hurricane in an attempt to rob it of power.

- I was alive for Gloria, although I was about 8 years old. It was "fun" to me, although it probably wasn't fun for 99% of the Cape's population.

- What many people consider to be the worst non-Katrina/Andrew storm ever hit us in 1938. Known as The Great New England Hurricane or The Long Island Express, it pretty much effed over everybody from NY to SE Massachusetts. Blue Hills- quite a ways inland- recorded a 186 mph gust, which was the highest non-tornadic wind speed recorded in the world until they built a weather station on top of Mount Washington. Again... old timers tell me that this was the only storm to fully flood Hideaway Village in Buzzards Bay, where my cottage is.

- What about Bob? Hurricane Bob beat Cape Cod like a mouthy cotton slave in 1991, and it knocked out power for a week. I was in Duxbury for this one, just far enough to the north where I was body-surfing when it hit (between high tides- it did no damage at all in Duxbury). Less than 45 days later, I was homeless after the Perfect Storm.

So... keep an eye on the news, and prepare to batten down the hatches. In the same vein, don't cancel any afternoon tee times just yet.... this could end up being nothing at all. Keep your head up.