The contagious freak out

It’s amazing how contagious the “Hurricane Freak Out” is.

This storm is a Cat-2, might be a Cat-4 by the time it makes landfall, but just barely.  On the coast, get the F out of Dodge, but elsewhere?  Not so much a problem.  At its worst, assuming it makes landfall as Cat-4, this thing will be a strong Cat-3, which is a big, scary deal, for sure, but it’s not THAT big of a deal.

 

We’re talking howling wind, creaking houses, dangerous projectiles, busted windows, roof damage, gnarly, bad stuff to be sure.  But it’s not going to scrape the landscape clean by any stretch of the imagination.  Put away your toys, lock your doors, hunker down.  You’ll be fine.  It’ll be scary, but you’ll be fine.  People who’ve done this before know what I’m talking about.

 

Now, the closer you get to the coast, however, the bigger and scarier and gnarlier this thing becomes.  A Cat-4 is nothing to sneeze at.  But once you get about 50 to 100 miles inland, you’re going to less in the “OH MY GOD!!” realm and more in the “holy crap” range.

 

Nonetheless, the longer this wall to wall Ike coverage wears on (we’re what, 48 hours from landfall still and already there’s been 4 days of coverage?) the tenser the atmosphere becomes and the more pinched the facial expressions become and the contagion begins to work its way through.  Come Friday afternoon the highways are going to be jammed full of people from the “holy crap” zones (and even “meh” zones) because they just spent a day watching the “OH MY GOD!!” zones clearing out, caught the contagion, and proceeded to freak out.

 

It’ll be ok.

Really.

 

It’ll be scary, sure.  But it’ll be ok.

 

Deep breath…  ok, pour some rum…  then some punch…  now sit back and sip slowly…  there…  feel better?  No?  Have another.  It’ll be ok.