For nine days it has dawned gorgeous in South Florida. Like clockwork, by three o’clock every afternoon, dark clouds appeared from the north, building into towering steel grey cumulonimbus anvils, filling the sky with spectacular displays of lightning and loud volleys of thunder until spilling their contents in torrential downpours on the streets. 

            But not yesterday and not today.

            On the eve of Ernesto’s landfall, it’s been two spectacular days in paradise, with a blazing sun, a light breeze, puffy white cumulus clouds filling the sky and not a drop of rain. Only the usually quiet ocean off of Highway A1A revealed something turbulent was going on somewhere far away to the south—but even the surf was beautiful and mesmerizing.

            No wonder people who have never witnessed a hurricane ignore warnings and are often injured—or worse. “The calm before the storm” is a real phenomenon.

            Native Floridians have vivid memories of 2005 and here, in Palm Beach County, of Wilma, last year’s category 2 storm that raced across the peninsula in October, wreaking a path of destruction. Consequently, there are long lines at gas stations, bottled water is in short supply and homeowners are busy putting corrugated steel storm shutters on windows and glass patio doors. The cash machine at Bank of America on Federal Highway was empty yesterday when I tried to withdraw $50.

            Nonetheless, in the midst of this frenzy of activity, everyone is cautiously breathing a collective sigh of relief. The latest track shows Ernesto making landfall somewhere in the vicinity of Miami as a tropical storm. It’s already raining in the Keys. It is then expected to move northward, bisecting the peninsula, passing directly over West Palm Beach and dumping up to ten inches of rain. Winds are expected to be a moderate 40-50 mph, with gusts approaching 60 mph; a mere zephyr compared to what this state endured last year.

            No one is taking any chances. The chief of police in Lake Worth, a suburb of Palm Beach, ordered the evacuation of the hotel where I was staying. Fortunately, I have friends that live 20 miles inland where I spent the night last night and will spend the night again tonight when the full force of the storm hits. On Tuesday, after breakfast, we moved all of his outdoor pool furniture into the garage.

            2006 has been a relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season despite dire predictions earlier in the year. September is typically the worst month for hurricanes and there is another disturbance boiling off of Africa into the inter-tropical convergence zone as I write so perhaps the worst is yet to come. I am no meteorologist.

            But this I do know: Man vs. The Elements has been a recurring theme for millennia. New Jerseyans face blizzards, Floridians deal with hurricanes. We will get through this. n

Gregory J. Rummo is a businessman and writer. Contact him through his website, GregRummo.com.