MIAMI—South Florida residents were overcome with fear, confusion, and an unnerving sense of dread Tuesday when they learned that an unidentified hurricane is heading for their area—its origin uncertain, its intentions unclear, and perhaps most frightening, its name unknown.
"Who is this hurricane?" said Miami resident Beverly Motolla, just one of hundreds of thousands of citizens struggling to put a human face on this impending tragedy. "Why is it here? What does it want from us?"
Such questions remain agonizingly unanswered, as the anonymous storm front shows no signs of slowing down or divulging its background. Lacking any reliable information on the character traits of the popularly dubbed "Hurricane That Shall Not Be Named," thousands have fled the area, hoping to escape its destructive winds, driving rain, and chilling impersonality.
"I heard that the hurricane killed 620 Guatemalans last week in cold blood," Mark Barclay of Sweetwater said. "And that it didn't even care." Though the hurricane is predicted to cause widespread destruction, many say it brings something even more dangerous than a 10-foot storm tide and rapidly contracting eyewall: the element of the unknown.
On Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued a statement in which it rejected calls to name the hurricane, describing such an action as "impossible.""We've monitored, studied, and examined this hurricane in the two weeks since it appeared seemingly out of nowhere on our radar, and it simply has no name," NWS acting director Mary Glackin said. "If it had one, we'd be using it. It's not like we can just make up a name."
1 comment:
Haha! Of course they can't just make one up! That wouldn't make any sense.
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