A Different Hurricane
When I was thirteen years old, a pair of hurricanes struck my hometown merely two months apart. The first, a relatively weak Category 2 storm, hit in such a way that I was able to stand on the front porch with my dad and uncle (my mom, brother, and sister were out of town at the time) as the winds and rain came over from the back of the house. We ate snacks as we watched the iridescent glow of electrical bursts coming from the transformer station just beyond the reaches of our neighborhood. We comically ruminated on the pronunciation of "debris" while branches fell from nearby trees. I lamented all of the yard-cleaning work that lay before me in the coming days. With all due respect to the dangerous situation that a hurricane can be, as well as an understanding that this was not truly an event to celebrate, I do remember feeling rather excited about the opportunity to witness such a storm up close. If you're in a safe place when nature flexes some muscle,