Week Four - Thinking Out Loud " Oh Irene!"

http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/irene-floods-out-the-catskills-21726

I live in Chicago where the skies have been clear and blue and Lake Michigan crystalline and calm. But, that's not what I was experiencing watching the news of Irene's path up the east coast. You see, I am from a local suburb of New York City, only in Chicago for three years, so watching the news was just like being home because hurricane made the Northeast local news to everyone in the county. CNN, the Weather Channel, MSNBC etc, all had correspondents on the scene - many scenes I am very familiar with. I was glued to the tube, especially as it hit Philly, Jersey, Manhattan, Long Island and Connecticut, all home turf. I wondered what my old neighborhood would be like, and what I would be doing. I think I would be disobeying out somewhere in the storm - hopefully safe, experiencing Irene first hand. Watching TV, I actually had a few Twilight Zone moments when I looked out my living room window and saw sunshine, traffic and pedestrians idling by - what? Oh yeah, Im in Chicago, doah!

I had the same desire to experience a disaster first hand - don't get me wrong, I am not an ambulance chaser or an accident gawker, but when something really big happens, I want to the there; and in New York City, it's a pretty good bet that something big will happen at anytime and you might just be in the midst of it. I had a almost paralyzing desire to be at Ground Zero as soon after 9/11 as possible. It took three weeks, but I got there as a volunteer one midnight shift, in the pouring rain. It was an experience of shock and awe indelibly written in my mind, heart and even my bones. There was a resonance to it, a sound, an eeriness, it was way too big for me to digest. The whole event was too big to grasp, that's why I had to get there, witness it my self with my own eyes so I could metabolize this most horrific event in my lifetime...well it not over yet, lets hope worst has come unlike the best.

Anyway, Irene flooded more than streets and buildings, it flood my senses with its spectacle, with awe and my feelings for home. I wish I were there right now.

Images from The Weather Channel http://www.weather.com/