IS HURRICANE EARL COMING?

“And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is.
And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass.
Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” (Luke 12:54-56)

Last night around nine I was briefly talking to a friend on the phone.

“I just hope we don’t get that hurricane!” I said.

He had no idea what I was talking about and I had to explain to him that there’s a big and powerful hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean called “Hurricane Earl” which has a chance of hitting New England on Friday or Saturday.

This morning at my job a woman asked me if I was doing anything special for Labor Day weekend. I did mention that I have a speaking engagement on Sunday, and I also said, “I hope to not be affected in any way by the hurricane this weekend.” She also had no idea what I was talking about, and assumed I was planning to travel far from New England this weekend.

It’s apparent that quite a few people almost NEVER follow the news or weather! The above quote comes from Jesus’ earthly ministry where He commented about people studying the skies to predict the weather. I guess many people today don’t function any differently than that.

Hurricane warnings can be perplexing. I remember that around this time of year in 1976 a hurricane was forecast to hit New England. People boarded up and taped up windows, and made all sorts of preparations. Nothing happened. In September of 1938, a massive hurricane hit New England. It was NOT well forecasted. People were caught unawares. Especially in Connecticut and Rhode Island a number of people were killed. The last time I remember our area having much of an impact from a hurricane was when we got the remnants of a hurricane that had gone well inland (south of us) in 2003. Sept. 19 of that year was my 49th birthday. It was a miserable day; very humid, very windy and very rainy. It was certainly not at hurricane strength- just a lousy, stormy day. I think the last time New England suffered any serious impact from a hurricane was Hurricane Bob in August of 1991. I remember we had a lot of tree limbs down in our yard, and we lost electricity for three or four hours, but it really wasn’t all that bad. In September of 1985, New England WAS pretty hard hit from Hurricane Gloria. There was a lot of serious damage with that storm and we had no electricity for quite a few days.

At this point (Wednesday morning) it’s really too soon to tell what will happen, but one of four things will happen “weather wise” on Friday and Saturday:

1. We’ll be very hard hit by Hurricane Earl; there will be lots of damage; and it will take days to get back to normal.

2. We’ll be brushed by Hurricane Earl; there will be a few trees down here and there and some power outages. By Sunday morning, pretty much everything will be fine.

3. Friday and Saturday will be like Sept. 19, 2003...lots of wind and rain, but no real hurricane...just a lousy day.

4. There will be little or no rain and wind on Friday and Saturday. The storm will track well to the east of us and it will be no big deal for New England.

At this point, we just don’t know. I’d vote for number 4 and MAYBE for 3, but that’s it. Well, in a few days, we’ll find out.

Now, Pat Robertson claimed he could speak to a hurricane (like Jesus spoke to a wind storm) and make it go away. Pat, I think it’s time to get speaking to this hurricane!