The Perfect Storm of the Century of the Week*

A coastal low has formed on the Carolina coast, combining the remmants of Hurricane Ida and two other systems to create a truly nasty event. The coastal areas of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the Other Banks of North Carolina are getting pounded with rain, high winds, and tidal flooding. This has all the trappings of a hurricane without the tropical weather: states of emergency, travel restrictions, school closings, increasing numbers of power outages, and a name (the "November Nor'easter").

I had a bad feeling about this one Tuesday evening and brought in deck furniture, checked the generator, filled up my wife's ride, and fueled spare gas cans--drawing some snickers about disaster prep paranoia. No one is laughing now.

*A shameless ripoff of one of Robbo's signature post titles and a mediocre George Clooney flick.

YIPS! from Robbo: It's just a very soggy day farther up the coast in Your Nation's Capital, but it's also a perfect excuse for lighting a fire.

I'll tell you something about that George Clooney flick, too. The Weather Channel decided to run it in prime time on the anniversary of the Perfect Storm (known then as the Halloween Storm) a couple weeks ago. Being stuck in a hotel room in the midwest, I found myself watching it, and I must say that the editing and placement of commercial breaks in the thing by TWC was so amateurish as to be down-right jaw-dropping. I've got no brief for this movie, but I was positively outraged when TWC went to commercial just as the Andrea Gale was starting up that final, monstrous wave.

I've only seen hack-work that bad once before, in college, while watching The Good, The Bad and the Ugly on a local Hartford CT station. (Steve-O might have been there, too.) They went to break right in the middle of the final showdown among Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes.

I mean, come on, guys! Pay attention!

YIPS BACK FROM LMC:

155,000 people without power and I am not one of them, dammit! All that effort fueling the generator and hooking it up for nothin!