Hurricane Season is Here -- Stock up on Filler Language

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The height – or depth – of hurricane season is here, which means it’s time for us to review all the Weather Channel cliches’ so we can try to sort out the reality:

1. Weather Channelistas always employ allusions to Hurricane Katrina, which, as we all know, was the only hurricane to strike these shores within living memory.
2. “We’re not out of the woods” – curious metaphor for a hurricane.
3. “Rain event” – why don’t they just say rain?
4. “Dodged the bullet” – hurricanes don’t shoot
5. “Stormed ashore” – well, yes, storms do indeed storm.
6. “Wreak havoc” – what, really, is havoc, and why and how is it wreaked? What is wreaking, anyway?
7. “Swath of destruction” – okay, Mr. Weather Channel Dude, quick, without consulting a dictionary, what is a swath?
8. “Mother Nature’s wrath” and “Mother Nature’s fury” – to which Greek or Roman nature goddess would the concept of Mother Nature apply?
9. “Decimated” – not unless the death rate is 10%
10. “Trees snapped like matchsticks” – do matchsticks ever snap like trees?
11. “Looks like a war zone.” No, it doesn’t. No one involved in the horror of combat looks upon the scene afterward and says “It looks like a hurricane zone.”
12. Storms that brew – what do they brew? Tea? Coffee? White lightnin’?
13. Storms that gain or lose steam, as if they were teakettles or steam locomotives
14. Hurricanes that make landfall – well, what else would they make? A gun rack in shop class?
15. Batten down the hatches (Darn, I forgot to buy a hatch; I wonder if the stores are still open)
16. Hunker down
17. Calm before the storm, always “eerie”
18. Calm in the eye of the storm, always “eerie”
19. Calm after the storm, always “eerie”
20. Visually, the stock shot of some doofus in a slicker, standing on the beach, and yelling into a microphone to tell us to stay off the beach.

Finally, always remember that, first and last, hurricane reporting is about Katrina; everything is about Katrina. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. Audrey? Carla? Rita? Ike? Never heard of ‘em, pal.