what's in a word?: Saturday - Waiting on the weather

As I sit here writing, Hurricane Henri is a category 1 storm moving in a northerly direction, about 335 miles south of Montauk Point at the eastern end of Long Island. With hurricanes, nothing is certain until it's gone past and even then, some have turned and hit places that thought they were out of harms way.I am about 10 miles north of Long Island Sound, which is far enough to not worry about a storm surge but not far enough to not be affected if the storm comes this way. I lived through Hurricane Sandy which clobbered New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and from which some infrastructure is still under repair. I was in NYC the day before the storm and I noted that the litter baskets not secured had been removed, shops taped their windows to prevent flying glass, and everyone was hunkered down, as well they should've been. The storm brought down enough trees where I live to isolate us for a few days and then to leave us without power for 10 days, and we were lucky. No serious property damage, nobody hurt and not having running water was probably the biggest inconvenience.

I remember Hurricane Belle in the summer of 1976. It was aimed directly at the New York Metro area and came ashore on Fire Island, a barrier island with lots of summer communities about 60 miles east of New York City, and cause serious damage there. Manhattan, where I was living then, was blasted by the western edges of the storm, and it was still seriously intense. I put on an army surplus poncho/shelter half that I used in very wet weather and went for a walk. I lived on the Upper West Side and I started my walk along Riverside Drive, thinking I'd see some interesting things across the Hudson. What I remember was the wind was strong enough to drive water through every opening in the poncho, that walking into the wind was impossible, that I was soaking wet within minutes of entering the storm, and that parked cars were shaking up and down and trees were groaning and shaking violently, shedding leaves and small branches that were hurtling through the air, larger branches crashing down on top of parked cars and blowing into the middle of Riverside Drive.

I think I walked two blocks. I realized that I was being stupid and putting my life at risk. The wind lashed debris in my face, my clothes were so soaked under my poncho and the poncho too much like a sail, that I sheltered in the entryway of an apartment building, took it off and folded it up as compactly as it would go. I could not stay where I was because debris was flying all around me, windows were crashing out of their panes above me, and all of this not even close to the center of the storm! Out on Long Island the winds were stronger than 100 miles per hour and it would've been horrific to be in them. Where I was, on the west side of Manhattan, I don't know what they measured but they felt stronger than the winds felt when I'd stick my hand out the window of a car traveling more than 60 mph.

Global climate change is affecting the strength and number of ocean born storms every year. I'm a lot older now than that brash young man in 1976, and where I live the danger of falling trees is far greater - there are many more trees and they are much larger - so I won't go out in the storm. But afterwards I marvel at the how strong nature is and how puny we are in comparison.

Tonight I post a few more photos I shot in Easton PA a three weeks ago. I was walking around, hanging out at the IF Museum for an opening and generally liking the people I met and chatted with.

Here are a few of them, including a couple of people I showed previously.