AP article – The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season should be “very active,” with 17 named storms, a top storms forecaster said Tuesday.
Those named storms are expected to include five intense or major hurricanes, according to forecaster William Gray’s team at Colorado State University.
Doubtless we’re going to be hearing a lot about this as we approach hurricane season. The media is going to dust off the Katrina footage and show New Orleans underwater again. They’re going to show the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s total devastation and milk it for all it’s worth. Because generally speaking, if it’s not bad, it’s not news.
But William Gray’s team has been wrong before, notably just last year when they predicted a busy season and we got practically nothing. This is not an exact science. But even if they are right, what I wrote soon after Katrina is still true:
I have minor damage to my home, totaling (in my estimation, since the adjuster has not been here yet) less than $15,000. Some exterior walls have to be re-sided, a patio cover and shed were destroyed – and all the contents – and fencing was destroyed. The roof seems okay. I’ve considered perspective before (The Total Perspective Vortex; I was re-reading The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the time) and what God’s perspective is compared to our own worm’s eye view. One definition of “perspective” is the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer. The mercy of Hurricane Katrina is that we were able to see how frail and temporary things down here really are. Considering that life is eternal, the length of time we can expect to spend with these material things is so much shorter, compared to the length of our lives, that they are hardly worth mentioning. I have stubbed my toe hundreds of times in my life, but I can’t remember the details of even one time. It’s a reminder to build our house upon the rock, a reminder that to have our life we must lose it. Rita is drifting northward and I find I’m really not bothered by it. We’ll evacuate, or not. Get hit, or not. Flood, or not. My God is sovereign and I am in His hands.
Recent Comments