Irma’s slamming Florida. Jose’s roiling the Atlantic. Houston’s barely started drying out from Harvey. And Hurricane Donald is still wreaking its Category-5 havoc everywhere.
The eye is centered in Washington, but the deadly squalls now extend from coast to coast.
It has been eerie watching the windblown TV correspondents delivering the rain-soaked standups from the battered Gulf Coast. The looks on their faces are no different from the wide-eyed shock displayed by their high-and-dry colleagues reporting from the White House briefing room.
“Worst on record,” they keep warning the helpless viewers. “No one is safe.”
The destructive potential of all these storms is so enormous, how can anyone turn away?
No one can say for certain why we are getting these 500- and 1,000-year storms in Washington and the Gulf. Is it climate change? Wetlands reduction? Russian hacking? The Electoral College? Depends which storm we’re discussing.
No doubt they all play a role.
By now, Rush Limbaugh’s the only one still calling this “fake news,” and he just scampered out of Palm Beach for bunkers unknown.
Regular Americans respond to national tragedies with dignity and resolve.
They roll up their sleeves and start pulling moldy drywall out of their living rooms while resisting the latest threats swirling out of Washington: Kill DACA! Repeal Obamacare! Out-dare Kim Jong-Un!
It took us a while to clean up after Katrina. Why wouldn’t it take us a while to clean up from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose and Donald?
Metro columnist Ellis Henican is the best-selling author of a dozen books including the upcoming “Trumpitude: The Secret Confessions of Donald’s Brain.” He is on Twitter @henican.
