New England is a benighted region. \u00a0It\u2019s not coincidental that H. P. Lovecraft was from here.\u00a0 Even though I\u2019m not a native New Englander I have now lived the majority of my life here and so I had the honor to ride the Hurricane Bob Express back in 1991.\u00a0 Bob was the last hurricane to actually make landfall as a hurricane in New England so it\u2019s remembered fondly.<\/p>\n
Back then I was a hot-shot process engineer working for an engineering company that had been purchased by one of the major defense contractors and therefore had plenty of money for plane fare.\u00a0 We had a processing plant in Cape May NJ that needed an operational audit prior to submitting a proposal to modernize the plant.\u00a0 You would have thought that a hurricane coming up the east coast was a good enough reason to postpone the trip.\u00a0 You would have thought wrong.<\/p>\n
So, there I was early on the morning of August 19th<\/sup> 1991 sitting on the tarmac of Boston\u2019s Logan Airport with several of my associates waiting to take off for the relatively short trip to southern New Jersey.\u00a0 Several of the passengers including the fellow sitting next to me on the flight were nervous.\u00a0 I on the other hand have always felt that since I have virtually zero control over what happens once I sit down in a plane, there\u2019s really no sense in worrying.\u00a0 So, I was reading a book.<\/p>\n There was a substantial delay on the tarmac while the tower decided whether to cancel the flight.\u00a0 We could see that the wind and rain were pretty awful outside the plane.\u00a0 Finally, the decision was made to take off and away we went.\u00a0 The stewardesses began moving down the aisle taking drink orders when we hit the brunt of the storm.\u00a0 The sensation was like a mechanical bull.\u00a0 The plane bucked up and down for several minutes with even a little lateral motion to make it really interesting.\u00a0 I experienced a giddiness like you get on a roller coaster and actually found myself laughing out loud.\u00a0 The personal experience of the other passengers definitely varied.\u00a0 There was a good amount of spirited screaming.\u00a0 The poor stewardesses got the worst of it.\u00a0 They were flung out of the aisle onto the passengers.\u00a0 Their heavy metal cart jumped around but stayed right side up.\u00a0 The girls eventually beat a hasty retreat to the end of the aisle and stayed there.<\/p>\n But the funniest thing was that the passengers kept hitting their call buzzers.\u00a0 They wanted their drinks.\u00a0 Apparently, they needed the booze right away.\u00a0 Finally, the head stewardess starting screaming over the PA system to order them to stop hitting the buzzers.\u00a0 It was quite a scene.\u00a0 I think my neighbor was praying.\u00a0 He had his head down and his eyes shut.<\/p>\n Twenty minutes later we were back in the sunshine and when we landed shortly after that it was hot and sunny.\u00a0 The hurricane seemed to have scrubbed everything clean and it was a beautiful day.\u00a0 We did our work and caught a flight home that night.\u00a0 Hurricane Bob was long gone but he had left his mark.\u00a0 There was no power or phones and the bus I was supposed to take wasn\u2019t running.<\/p>\n I ended up taking a subway train to a commuter train to a bus station and took a bus to a stop where I could walk down a road for about two miles to where my car was parked.\u00a0 By the time I got home Camera Girl had given me up for dead but was willing to break out some food and drink for the conquering hero.\u00a0 Thus ended my adventure in hurricane bronco busting.\u00a0 Not exactly Pecos Bill material but highly entertaining.<\/p>\n So now Hurricane Henri is teed up.\u00a0 Once again, it\u2019s a hurricane with a guy\u2019s name which is sort of disreputable to start with.\u00a0 And it\u2019s French which adds insult to injury.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be a Category One Storm so far.\u00a0 But the track is going to be dead center on target to where I live which kind of stinks.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve got a generator, plenty of food and water and an emergency of this sort provides a manly man such as myself with the opportunity to impress his damsel in distress with his prowess at fighting the raw power of nature head on.\u00a0 Plus, we have pop-corn and a DVD player if things really get dicey.\u00a0 Well, here\u2019s to survival.\u00a0 At least I\u2019m not in Kabul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New England is a benighted region. \u00a0It\u2019s not coincidental that H. P. Lovecraft was from here.\u00a0 Even though I\u2019m not a native New Englander I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,288,818,1263],"tags":[3243,3172,1267],"class_list":["post-15682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-humor","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-hurricanes","tag-new-england-weather","tag-photogs-corner"],"yoast_head":"\n