Blown Away

I've been following the news about Galveston all day.

I've pretty much forgotten what it's like to be staring down the barrel of a shotgun and I'm glad. I lived in central Florida for 11 years, but that was 14 years ago. Since then, I've just had to deal with nor'easters and the remnants of Hurricane Floyd. They were no picnics, but it wasn't like coming back to your neighborhood and not recognizing anything because it's all just soggy rubble.

Back in the day, when I was an earnest young programmer for Mighty Citadel, the Divestiture Years, I found myself working on a project that was in acceptance testing just as Hurricane Elena came blowing in. I remember getting very pissed off at the testers who had flown in from New Jersey and were very excited about the prospect of a hurricane. Idiots.

I was able to do some testing from home, one eye on the TV showing the advancing hurricane and the ever-enlarging tornado warning area. But then I lost contact with the data center. They were about twenty miles away and I had a test tape that needed to be loaded. The only way to get it there was to drive it down myself. In a hurricane. On a Saturday. I was half way to the data center when I heard that there had been a tornado go through the data center area.

I pulled off the road into a gas station and found a pay phone. I called the data center. No answer. I called The Ewok King and explained to him 1) Hurricane 2) Test tape in my car 3) No response from data center. What to do?

He said, "Well, that's a decision you're just going to have to make." So helpful. Thanks.

I got back in the car. I kept driving to the data center. And I looked at the traffic around me and I saw all these people. And I thought - what the hell are these idiots doing on the road? They don't have to be, I do. And then I thought - if they're idiots, what am I? I'm not a firefighter or EMT. I'm not a police officer. What the hell am I doing, driving around central Florida in a hurricane toward a data center that may or may not be there, for testing that probably won't get done because the testers are in the bar of their hotel drinking Singapore Slings and the phone lines are going down.

I turned my car and my ass and the tape back around and drove home.

And then, as I did during most hurricane and tornado warnings, I hid in the walk-in closet of the master bedroom until all the bad stuff went away.