Getting the Goods on Gustov

Just in case you’ve been spending this holiday weekend under a rock you know that it’s once again that wonderful magical time of season. That’s right, it’s...

...Hurricane Season!

It’s baaaaaaaaack.

This time the latest weather threat comes from Hurricane Gustov who was poised to slam into the Gulf Coast states on this fine Labor Day long weekend. Gustov has been tracked from day one on its path across the Gulf of Mexico and is currently ranked as a Category 3 hurricane by meteorologists and storm enthusiasts alike with the possibility of turning into a Category 4 or 5 hurricane later.

Oh yeah, baby!

What’s a Labor Day weekend without your 24 hour levee watch?

So it’s going to be nothing but swirling meteorological diagrams and wind swept beach lines on the boob tube for the next few days at ‘ol Chez Tigerrabbit. It’s become somewhat of a Labor Day tradition around my place over the last few years since Hurricane Katrina. There’s been Hurricane Ernesto, Dean, Felix, Humberto, Bertha, Dolly and most recently Charley. And of course there’s Hurricane Hanna and Ike still on the way yet.

I just loves me my late-breaking Labor Day hurricane updates

Yep. Labor Day without regular CNN hurricane updates is like Christmas without presents, Easter without colored eggs, or Halloween without tooth decay. Next to white socks and picnics, hurricanes are the very essence of Labor Day. In fact, Hurricane Reports have replaced the Jerry Lewis Telethon as the primary television broadcast of the holiday long weekend*.

And where’s Anderson Cooper you ask?

Why “Mr. 360” has already situated himself at ground zero in downtown New Orleans fighting the winds and the rain on the corner of Bourbon Street in order to bring his viewers an actual first hand experience of what it’s like to get blown around in 110 mph winds and soaked with torrential downpour.

Thanks for keeping it real, Anderson.

So with two days to go until landfall one has to wonder: has the good State of Louisiana done something specific to piss off Mother Nature? Did she get served a funky order of crawdad’s or something because she sure seems to have a serious hate on for these New Orleans folk like God has a hate on for the Boy Scouts.

The difference is that Hurricane Gustov, after all the hype it received from Thursday onward, came and went with all the fury of a wet fart. As far as hurricanes go – Gustov was a complete flop. Only the odd leaky levee and battered tree branch resulted after the storm hit landfall - hardly the stuff that decent disasters are made from.

But that didn’t stop FEMA from taking serious preemptive action in saving the good people of New Orleans from possible harm. It seems that FEMA has learned its lesson after Katrina in 2005.

PROTECT THE LEVIS AND DIAPERS AT ALL COST!

That’s right! Where New Orleans mayor Ray Nagrin encouraged people to flee the city last time, he all but kicked their asses out this time. Furthermore, he made it clear – to the people of the St. Bernard Parish in particular – that anyone caught looting in the streets this time would be automatically shipped to Angola State Penitentiary for immediate processing.

"You will not get a pass this time...you will go directly to Angola Prison and God bless you if you go there", Nagrin said matter-of-factly.

So the message that unless you like the idea of becoming the prison bitch for some guy named ‘Bubba’ in Cell Block D you’ll get your butt on one of those evacuation buses out of town.

Atta boy, Ray! Way to get in there, lay it down and kick some ass.

A world without Levi’s and Pampers is not a world worth living in.

But honestly, who is their right mind would ever be intimidated by anyone or anything named Gustov? Is this the best name they could come up with? If they really wanted to motivate people to leave the city and heed the danger warnings seriously they would have called it something like Hurricane Adolph, or Hurricane Bin Laden or something a little more mellow dramatic and threatening.

As it is, Hurricane Gustov sounds like some harmless migrant worker whose come to visit for the weekend.

* Although it is debatable over who blows more – Jerry Lewis or Hurricane Gustov.