Watching out what you wish for

I don’t know about you but it’s only the middle of July (as this issue goes to print) and I’m already ready for the weather to cool off. You know that old adage about waiting 15 minutes for the weather to change? That simply does not apply to Texas and the South Central states in July and August. It’s only hot, hotter and hottest.

In my younger days, growing up in Houston, we kids — and there were a bunch of us in my family — would hope for a hurricane to head our way just to end the monotony, and to provide a little excitement. The grown-ups didn’t see it that way, of course. For them, hurricanes meant headaches and hassles at the very least, and destruction at the very worst. Even when I got smart and moved to Austin, I used to hope for a hurricane to come around, because inland that meant at least a chance for rain, which gets pretty scarce around here this time of year.

My wishing for hurricanes ended a long time ago and wishing for them to stay away is fruitless, as we have seen in the past few years. Still, many people living along the nation’s coastlines apparently haven’t “gotten it” yet. According to a couple of surveys released this summer (see page 127), about half of the coastal populace from Brownsville, Texas, to the rocky shores of Maine, still are not prepared for the eventuality of a hurricane making landfall where they live. I guess they’re “wishin’ and hopin'” that it just doesn’t happen to them. However, that seems rather extraordinary, given the media attention that resulted from the Hurricane Katrina and Rita catastrophes last year, and the devastating hurricane season in Florida the year before.

The media, Insurance Journal included, continues to focus on these natural catastrophes. Nearly one-third of the stories in this issue relate to natural catastrophes in some way. After all, catastrophes make good copy–there’s always something interesting to write about, even if it’s only about how well or how badly our elected or appointed officials are responding to the crises caused by such events. But it’s important to remember that although they are “stories” for us, catastrophes are a grim reality for many, many folks. So, with that in mind, I wish we could stop writing about catastrophes, although that is unlikely to happen.

As for my summers, I don’t hope for hurricanes anymore, I just wish I could spend them on the coast of British Columbia, watching whales.

Maybe someday.