Florida is tense. The media packages the news, and it is tempting to package a category five hurricane as a looming disaster. The mathematical models that the meteorologists use to predict the path of tropical storms has had Wilma trapped in the Caribbean by a ridge of a high pressure system in the Gulf, when that high pressure system weakened according to the experts, Wilma would turn North and move into the prevailing Westerlies and smash into Florida. That was Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday morning and the turn to the east is still to come
I write on Friday morning, and Wilma is just striking Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, with expectations of catastrophe, and the winds that will carry it toward Florida are now predicted to come later. Wilma was to come to us on Saturday, now it may hit Florida on Monday maybe, and then there is always Tuesday. Of course, it might hit Cuba. The whole Caribbean and the much of the Gulf region becomes involved in watching when a hurricanes direction depends on winds and jet streams that are somewhere in Minnesota but expected to come and push the storm and bring us havoc and destruction.
I suppose it is important for the weather people to warn us of impending catastrophe, but I wish they could do that and be a little more tentative. Can't we be properly scared with "Wilma may turn" and "it could slow down" and all the qualifications one reads in the actual reports being prepared in technical prose at the National Hurricane Center.
Church services are being cancelled in some of Florida's UU congregations for a hurricane that may still come but later than expected. I will make the call for my congregation in a few hours. I am involved in the uncertainty, because I am scheduled to fly to Boston for the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association Executive meetings, and as a parish minister I am worried about my church and my people. I can stay and worry, or go and worry. The long range models see Wilma headed for Massachusetts, which I hear needs the rain.
For my soul, I pray for Mexico's people. And I will refrain from listening to the weather reports on television. (Checking out the Hurricane Center's web site is more like research, and less sensational sound bites.)
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