Here we go again…

At one point in time I wanted to write a novel set in Miami.  It was meant to be a first person… well… I won’t get into the plot because, frankly, there wasn’t much of one, though I was inclined to go towards it being a detective/mystery/thriller-type thing.

This was going to be the first line of the book:

I hate Miami in the summer.

Nothing earth-shattering, just a common complaint I have of being in Miami and having to live through its brutal summers.

First, you deal with the twin body slams of heat and humidity.  It is awful to go outside. It’s awful to drive in your car even with your AC on full.  Inevitably, I leave the car with my back all wet from sweat.

And then there’s hurricane season.

While people are very understandably concerned about what happened in Texas with Hurricane Harvey, we around these parts are keeping a weary eye on the next named storm, Irma, which is already very strong and projected to get far stronger.

At this moment, when you head over to the National Hurricane Center’s website, its projected path takes it right to South Florida’s footstep by very late in this coming week.

But here’s the thing: The projections beyond three days are very much up in the air, something nervous people like myself have to repeat to ourselves constantly.  After all, when watching the regular weather predictions, anything beyond two days from the current date, its been my experience, is a crap shoot (or, to put it another way, I recall many times seeing/hearing that in two/three days we would have plenty of rain and the day comes and its sunny and hot?!  Hell, there have been predictions for the next day which have proven almost comically wrong).

Anyway, so too it is with Hurricane predictions, though clearly one needs to pay far more attention to them as they represent a threat not only to property, but also to one’s life.  Nonetheless, the early models took the storm north and then east, potentially threatening the Carolinas or, best case scenario, nobody at all.

This was only two days ago.

Now, these same predictions are taking the storm, potentially, over Cuba before making a northwardly turn which will either take it straight up Florida’s center, perhaps a little to the west (hugging the coast) and maybe even a little to the east.

Again, that’s this moment’s view.

Only tonight will Florida fall into the far ends of the -as we sardonically call it- “cone of death”.  By then, the track might be even more southern/westernly, which seems to be the way the track has been adjusting itself over the past couple of days.

And who knows, the track might turn again, heading more north and to the east and we might well be in the target.

It’s maddening.  It’s heart-stopping.

And there’s nothing anyone living here can do about it.

I hate Miami in the summer.