�Big one�s getting� ready to blow up the coast. Ayup, she�s gonna be a big one. She�s a-blowin� up the coast.�

I have no idea why they feel the need to repeat it.

Most of you who frequent these pages (and, by the way, thanks muchly for doing so) have a pretty good idea of where I live. But if you don�t, you can check out the national weather news on any given television and just look off the Mid-Atlantic coastline. See that big swirly looking thing with the projected path graphic superimposed on it, the graphic with the arrow leading the way? The thing called Isabel?

Well, that�s pretty much my street that the arrow points to. Or it would be if you could increase the magnification a little.

Now hurricanes in this part of the country, especially in September, are not an uncommon thing. Not uncommon at all. Seems like every year there�s a biggun�, a potential one, one that serves up instant fodder for television weather reporters and drains the local supermarket of bottled water and batteries. Occasionally, as is the case with this storm, it is actually large enough and on a projected course that will guarantee lively conversation at the local Watering Hole, and cause the bars TV�s to be turned to the Weather Channel even when ESPN has the bikini contest in full swing.

I�ve lived here long enough to be bored with it. Complacent, even. I�m one of those slugs who local officials warn you about, the one�s who don�t run pell-mell to the Piggly Wiggly and stock up on the water and batteries. Or track the storm on the ever-popular hurricane charts that the newspaper thoughtfully includes on its back page. Or run out to the Home Depot to buy a generator (I just read that Lowe�s has sold 9,000 generators regionally in the past week. Wow). �Course, I�ve already bought one, and it wasn�t for a lousy hurricane. So I guess there�s that.

I�m complacent about it for all the wrong reasons. Hurricane�s brew up every year, they start their march up the coast, fizzle and slow or die off altogether, or hit another landfall some distance away. Worst I ever went through was Gloria back in the late 80�s, and while it surely had some impressive howling wind and driving rain, it did little more than blow down some trees. Floyd hit in �99 and wiped out a fairly good sized town west of here with flooding, I mean absolutely wrecked the town, but wasn�t much of a problem in my neck of the woods.

So when they started the Isabel talk (Category 5! 450 miles across!) I was blatantly unimpressed. Anytime someone does the Chicken Little dance over something that hasn�t even reach Bermuda yet, I tend to react with a yawn.

They talked projected targets and we came up as a favorite. 18 foot storm surges at the beach. Flooding that would knock out the largest city in Virginia (there�s your location clue, hee) in a matter of hours, taking power and phone and water supply and (god forbid) internet and all the little essentials with it. There was a great deal of discussion on how this was the one, the one they�ve been warning us about � the storm of the century sort of talk. They�ve built this up to the point where nothing short of making this place a sort of Water World come to big screen life will suffice.

And the point is? I guess I don�t have one just yet.

I still haven�t stocked up on anything. Haven�t boarded up my windows or put ice in coolers or filled up the bathtub with water. Haven�t reserved a room at some hotel in an out of the path area to the west of us.

If the damned thing wants to swamp me, let it come. Lord knows we could use the excitement.

Tomorrow it�s supposed to hit. If you don�t hear from me, you�ll know what happened.

I slept through it.

Naw. I�ll let you know what happens. Promise.

Right after the bartender makes me another Hurricane.

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