Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

It's that time of year again, and Arlene, the first named tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, is churning for a Gulf coast landfall as we speak. Therefore, as a public service from a North Carolina native who's been through more hurricanes than Tammy Faye Bakker's been through makeup, I present to you:

Confederate Yankee's Guide to Dealing with Hurricane Season

Days Before the Storm Arrives

1. Move. Seriously, people in Idaho never have to deal with this crap.
2. Get milk and bread. Nobody seems to know exactly why, but I'm pretty sure it's the law.
3. Send Mama and the kids away to her folks for a few days.
4. Go to the beach and grab a seat in the dunes. Huge waves are cool to watch crashing on the beach, and if you're lucky, you can see some idiot from Quebec get swept out to sea. Screaming is funny in French.
5. Go home.
6. Throw all the crap you don't want any more in the yard. If the storm surge comes you can avoid a dumping fee, and if it doesn't, you can use all the debris to convince the guys from FEMA that it did and they'll cut you a big, fat check.

The Day before the Storm

1. Get more beer. Lots of it. If you're living in hurricane country, you might as well make the best of it.
2. Get ice. That way your beer stays cold even if you lose power for a couple of days.
3. Get one of those huge 490-quart Igloo coolers that looks like chest freezer, but bigger. It'll keep your iced beer cold, and can be used as a raft. Put it in the bass boat tied to your back porch.
4. Board up the windows of your trailer. You already have all the boards numbered from last year, so it should be a snap. Put all the crap you really need (rifles, radio, lawn chairs, cans of vienna sausages, etc.) in a big waterproof bag and tie it tightly well off the ground in a nearby tree.
5. Invite your best buddy over. Remind him to bring his cooler.
6. Wait.

Landfall

1. Sit inside and drink beer. Watch that 90-pound girl reporter from the local television news crew get battered by the wind and sideways rain while doing a live report. Take bets on whether or not the cameraman will warn her about that dumpster bearing down behind her. Wonder why he hates her so much. Giggle until you loose power.
2. Put on your lawn ‘n leaf bag and step outside for a smoke. Wow, those 100 MPH lighters really do work.
3. Go out back, get in the boat, and tie a rope around your cooler. Mount up. When the storm surge comes, you can ride that bucking 490-quart beast like a bull.
4. Yee-haw!
5. Float serenely along, drinking more beer. At this point you should have enough beer in you to “contribute to the storm surge,” if you know what I mean.
6. Empty your bladder up-current from that still-screaming guy from Quebec.
7. Thow your empty cans at, err, to him. Empty beer cans are nature's unsung floatation devices. Don't let him get too close though—he smells like piss.
8. Enjoy the ride while it lasts. Likes the French, storm surge always retreats eventually, and you'll be back on land soon enough.

Afterward

1. Climb off your cooler, hop out of the boat, and immediately start picking up full cans and bottles of beer left over from that convenience store down the street that washed away. 2. If he hasn't stopped screaming yet, an ice-cold beer should encourage “Frenchy” to settle down—especially if you catch him in the temple. 3. When he comes too, have him help pick up beers. If he refuses to work—which you should expect of socialists—simply hum a few bars of “Dueling Banjos.” 4. Deliverance needs no translation. 5. Have “Frenchy” drag your cooler back to your freshly scoured lot and then send him on his way. 6. Retrieve your rifle, radio, lawn chairs, and viennas from that waterproof bag you tied in a tree. 7. Pose for the CNN news crews that come by. They LOVE filming guys guarding nothing from lawn chairs. When Mama sees you on CNN, she and the kids will know you're “ah-ight.” 8. Have a can of viennas and a beer. 9. Wait for FEMA to come by. 10. Listen to the radio. According to the National Weather Service, you'll get to do it all again next week.