The Oppenheimer Report 9/2/19

Labour Day weekend disaster! We awakened this morning to the televised satellite images of Hurricane Dorian, hovering over the northern Bahamas, as it ever so slowly creeps towards the eastern coast of Florida. Communications from The Bahamas have been limited, but I just watched a video interview with a Freeport resident who reluctantly sought cover in a designated shelter once the storm surge became too dangerous. This Category 5 Hurricane stalled directly over the island of Grand Bahama for over 10 hours. We’ve seen the destruction an F5 tornado can generate in 30 seconds. Imagine that same wind force plaquing your community for 10 hours!

As a self-proclaimed storm junkie, I am fascinated by any and all catastrophic weather events. Hurricane Dorian certainly falls into that category. I’ve been following this storm for about a week, and I have been very concerned about my friends who live along the east coast of Florida. At present, 9 counties are under a mandatory evacuation order, but a lot of seasoned veterans of hurricanes in that region are ignoring evacuation orders, choosing instead to rely on their intuition and ride out the storm. On Friday night, I had a lengthy telephone conversation with my friend Gil Walker, a former high school classmate and fellow music lover, who lives in Vero Beach, Florida. Gil has ridden out many hurricanes over the past 25 or 30 years, and he has every intention to hunker down for Dorian. He was relieved to have procured a working generator (his own was not operational), and now his biggest concern is that he won’t enough gasoline to fuel it long term. He has been through some hurricanes wherein his electrical power was not restored for almost 2 weeks. I just spoke to him recently and he assured me that he was as prepared as he could be, waiting for whatever bad weather is to come. As of tonight, Vero may not be as hard hit as originally anticipated. Then again, the path of this storm has been difficult to predict.

We all know weather forecasting is not an exact science. I don’t think the people in The Bahamas were expecting a Catagory 5 hurricane to hover over their islands for an entire day. By the time I end up posting this report on Tuesday, the track of the storm will likely be more predictable, but while I was writing this, early Monday afternoon, there were still curious onlookers, watching the high surf hammering the east coast. I’ve been in touch with my nephew, a senior level meteorologist with NOAA (National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration), who lives and works in Virginia, and sends me regular updates on the track of the storm. At this point, the models have the hurricane brushing the shores of Florida, but no one really knows yet how close it will come, or how much of the east coast it will impact. I think back to the spring flooding we experienced here in the Muskoka and Almaguin Highland regions this year, and it reminds me how destructive and devastating any water damage can be. Considering the fact that, in addition to its ocean frontage, Florida’s east coast also has numerous rivers and inland waterways, one can imagine the potential for major destruction from a hurricane-fueled storm surge.

Finally, my heart goes out to the community of Odessa,Texas where the latest mass shooting occurred. I wish I had the solution to the gun violence problem in America, but I don’t. I’m in favour of gun control, but I fear that this is a bigger problem. The shooter in this instance failed his background check, and perhaps had psychological problems. Regardless of those facts, he managed to purchase a powerful automatic weapon. At this point, guns are easier to buy in The United States than weed, and that’s just wrong.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2019
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
jamieoppenheimersongwriter@gmail.com

Jamie Oppenheimer, Songwriter, Author, Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles on his blog since 2006. We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a new feature of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.
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