hurricane-fucked

Ah yes, Category 6 hurricanes. They are like “This Is Spinal Tap’s:” “But this one goes to 11.” The thing is, there is no 11—the volume dial stops at 10, just like the hurricane scale stops at Category 5. It’s like we’re sitting here, staring at the devastation, and someone’s saying, “But what if it was a 5.1 storm?” As if that extra tenth is going to somehow crank the destruction up to a level we haven’t already hit.

Spoiler Alert: the roof’s still gone, the powers out, and your neighborhood’s a lake. Your bed is down the street and not because your Karen neighbor stole it... But hey, maybe we just need a new rating scale. One that goes to 11—because apparently, some people won’t be satisfied until a storm picks up their house and relocates it to another dimension other than the Twilight Zone we already occupy.

Help! I'm stepping into The Twilight Zone
Place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go now that I've gone too far?
Soon, you will come to know when the hurricane takes my home…

Wondering about hurricane categories are we now? More specifically, the Category 5 rating and why we stopped there, as if Mother Nature might just politely say, "Okay, this is enough destruction. Let’s not go any harder." You ever know a drunk or an addict to ‘stop there?’ First off, no, there’s no such thing as a "Category 5.1" or a "Category 6." Yeah, Hurricane Ian in 2022 was a monster, and if anyone threw around the term "5.1," it was a way to give it that extra, "oh, shit, we’re proper Fucked," emphasis or click-bait because everyone’s an influencer now and needs your attention to make monies. However, technically, scientifically, and factually, Category 5 is where the Saffir-Simpson scale maxes out (1971). That’s because once you hit 157 mph sustained winds, you’re already looking at damage that can’t get much worse in terms of scale. It is now binary, black and/or white, zero and/or one. Most people that live in the binary world of decision making do not understand how binary works. They want to interject their opinion with a “but, followed by the long-winded explanation.” However, once you said “but,” your explanation/answer is null and voided. The only two answers allowed are; you are either Fucked or you are not. Once 157 mph winds are sustained we’re talking “everything is annihilated” levels of bad—roofs gone, power out, roads submerged, your backyard swing set now halfway across the state. An electrical pole that can range from 30 to 60 feet in height, about 2 feet in diameter weighing anywhere from 500 to 2,000 pounds being forced into the ground at a depth of around 6 feet, is either there snapped in half, uprooted or is nowhere to be found at all.

After 157 mph sustained winds it doesn’t matter. What more do you want? Here’s the thing: there’s a physical limit to how strong a hurricane can get. Planet Earth has its rules. There's only so much heat, moisture, and perfect storm conditions (pun fully intended) to fuel these behemoths. Sure, 200 mph hurricanes like Patricia (2015) have happened, but guess what? It's still Category 5. You get what you get. The whole point on five being the max is because once five is achieved the survival rate for everyone inside the storm drops to zero. That isn’t saying; “Holy shit, we really are going to die.” Zero probability in this context just means: — that mathematically; the chances of survival is not worth calculating because it is so small it might as well be zero. But not impossible, just not probable in terms of mathematical statistics. Those words do mean different things and can never be lumped together as one thing. Now, if you’re still holding out for a future Category 6 listing, good luck. Some scientists and influencers alike talk about it like it is a real talking point. They’ll use big phrases on their videos and in corners of climate change discussions, where the oceans heat up like someone left the oven on. I can see it being real only if superstorms become more frequent, then yeah, maybe one day we'll have a Category 6. But for now, they’d probably have to rewrite the scale and convince people to care about the difference between “devastating” and “really, REALLY devastating.”

In reality though, it’s like asking if we need a 10 on the Richter scale for earthquakes. Once the world starts shaking at a nine, your house is gone whether or not someone decides to crank up the number and call it a ten or higher. Does it even matter? Fucked is fucked, right? Hurricanes don’t give a damn about your feelings, opinions, categories or even knowledge. It cares not for likes, comments and subscriber numbers for advertisers that are all AI-driven now. Hurricanes don’t care what number we slap on them or how much we prepare for them. They’re coming, they’re massive, and they’re indifferent. Hurricanes don’t care about human concerns or emotions. They don’t change or adjust based on how prepared we are or how we label them. Whether we call it a Category 5, 6, or whatever, hurricanes just do what they do—destroy things—with no consideration for the impact on us. Sound familiar? “Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!” — Kyle Reese, Terminator (1984)

Normally, hurricanes that form in the Gulf would head from west to east, giving Florida a solid smack right where it hurts. But these days, it’s like someone threw out all the old data and replaced it with a mess of data that looks more random than predictable. We’ve had 12 major hurricanes in the past seven years alone, depending what you deem “major” these days. I say if it kills people and destroys communities, yeah, that is “major” to me…  GAIA is no longer fucking about—these storms are hitting with enough force to rearrange coastlines let alone your living room furniture. Whether it’s Category 5 devastation or even a tropical storm to category 1 storm like Helene, causing floods, and a loss of life they refuse to report on the national news networks, all of them. We’re not just talking bad weather, we’re talking about the earth throwing a fastball pitch right at your skull with the intention to erase everything you used to be before the pitch was thrown.

They are forces of nature that are completely unaffected by anything we think, plan, or feel. Welcome to the tangibility of existentialism… It’s a bit like life itself. You can prepare, make all your plans, get your supplies in order—but when the storm hits, all that meticulous human planning is just paper in the wind. You think you're safe behind definitions and scientific scales, but hurricanes laugh in the face of our pathetic attempts to quantify their power. But hey, we humans need our definitions, categories and numbers. It gives us the illusion of control, the comfort that we can "define" chaos and control it. We cannot… This decision making process within us all just show how trapped we are in this, our own personal Matrix. Chaos doesn’t care about our lines in the sand, the bathroom you choose to piss in, the false-political leader you vote for, our spreadsheets of wind speeds and damage potential. It doesn’t care how much money you have in the bank, the monies or the bank itself as their own physical things. Category 5 could be Category Infinity, for all the difference it makes to your splintered home and uprooted life.

So yeah, call it Category 5.1, call it Category 6, whatever. Hurricanes aren’t listening. People aren’t listening, reading either. They are sharing though, oh boy, do they share. Hurricanes, they…

They are just coming…

Category Fucked
by David-Angelo Mineo
10/12/24
1,352 Words