Hey baby, is that a Category 4 or are you just happy to see me?

http://www.coloradostormchaser.com/Lamar5d.jpg
Yeah, this is cool enough. But it doesnt move me, not the way Im moved by http://tinyurl.com/8sgco

Oh by no means am I saying tornadoes aren't cool, but hurricanes are much much cooler. Twisters rarely range larger than 1/2 mile across, however - hurricanes - well, look at that thing.

A twister is 20 minutes in hell, a hurricane is 10 hours in hell. A grinding, gnawing, chewing hell at that. Relentless. I havent been through any really destructive hurricanes in my life - just one. But - in the offseason, we up in NY call them Nor'easters. Thats when they can be truly damaging.

Over 100 trees, each at least 50 years old were just flattened by a nor'easter one year. In a highly densely populated area at that. It took 24 hours for the storm to clear.

But the one true hurricane I still remember - http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/gloriairct.jpeg Hurricane Gloria. For days we had watched her make a bee-line for the Hudson River, and NYC itself. We heard the warnings, but NYC had not had a direct strike in years - so as usual, no one took them too seriously. But the night before, when we all colletively looked at our tv's and saw the radar - we knew it was happening this time. We all went panic shopping, filled our tubs or bought bottled water (generally unheard of at this time, in the halcyon years before Evian took off). Taped off our windows.

I was 10, sitting in the window of my 2nd floor bedroom, watching and waiting. We awoke to rain - wind, and rain. I was somewhat let down - but then I found out that not only had it not hit yet, but the eye was coming right for my house!

Monitoring situation ensued. I assumed my station - about 2 feet away from my window in my bedroom, with the tv on in the background giving me updates on the whole situation.

The wind began whipping up, and so did my love affair with hurricanes.

Somehow we got lucky - the eyewall split apart just as it passed over, and we only had one tree on the block fall on a house. Gloria hit at low tide, which is lucky, because nearly 3 miles of the south shore of Long Island are considered "flood risk" and do occasionally flood, during high tide and storms. Its happened in Nor'Easters. Had Gloria hit at high tide, there would have been a tide of over 14 feet, as she was running a 6-7 foot storm surge ahead of her.

Ever since, Ive been a man with hurricanes on the mind - so I say to all these weathergeeks, forcasting bad storms this year - just bring it. Storms are nothing to fear, its nature - you cant fear nature - it does what it wills to do.
You just have to survive it. And for me, I'll happily donate my services to any news organization that wants a on-scene reporter when the next Category-5 comes raging into shore. Just provide me enough rope I can tie myself to a lighthouse, and I'll be fine.