Storm Front

Every winter, around the time that the first big snowstorm arrives, my mother talks about how glad she is that she lives in upstate New York. We don't get hurricanes and we don't get tornadoes - the worst we get is a blizzard and we know it's coming a week ahead of time. Only stupid people die during a blizzard.

That kind of attitude is a very culturally-determined mindset. Consider the fact that Washington, DC shuts down after it snows three inches, and you will see that not everyone would share in my mother's opinion. That being said, for where she is, it works for her, right?

So if you can't judge my mother for her reaction to blizzards when she's spent her whole lifetime dealing with them, it then follows that you can't judge some other person for their reaction to a hurricane when they've spent their entire life on the Gulf Coast.

My mother puts the snow tires on her car every December, keeps the shovel and the ax handy for breaking up the ice and always has a ten-pound bag of road salt on the front porch. The neighbors have an auxiliary wood-burning furnace if the power goes out and could easily put up half the neighborhood if needs be, so my mother feels pretty darn prepared. She's been through hundreds of snowstorms and probably a good dozen honest-to-god blizzards, so who would begrudge her the fact that she's probably going to get through one more storm just fine and dandy?

The people of the Gulf Coast have seen a lot of hurricanes. Some of them were hardly worth boarding up for, and a select few were devastating. But people trust in themselves that they know what they're doing - whether it's hunkering down or heading inland, they've done it a hundred times before. It's a part of their lives and a part of their culture.

Sometimes, they make the wrong choice. The storm changes direction; the wind picks up; the levees break. Unforeseen circumstances interrupt the routine and tragedy occurs.

But you, mister grocery cashier, waving the newspaper in our faces and saying that the people of Texas deserved what they got for not leaving town, for not doing what YOU think they should have done, you who have never lived through a hurricane or ten hurricanes, who have never bought snow tires or boarded up your windows or run for the basement as the sirens blare
-- what the hell do YOU know?