A Hurricane Approaches

Some places are just too dangerous to live there.

A Hurricane Approaches

 

By Elton Camp

 

It comes around every year.

Hurricane season is to fear.

Each starts as a tropical wave

It doesn’t know how to behave.

 

Soon it becomes a big old storm.

Then into a hurricane will form.

What will its path come to be?

There’s a cone of uncertainty.

 

Any ships that lie in its path

Sail away to escape its wrath.

Those on land try to hunker down

If they think it may come around.

 

To hunker up would be a waste

Down they go and get braced.

Plywood over windows nail

Before the wind does assail.

 

Must be great to have an ocean view.

Actually, I’d enjoy having that too.

But the risk is far too great.

Why would I tempt old fate?

 

Not at all that I don’t care

About those who live there.

But I wonder why they stay

When they could move away.

 

If I put my house on the edge of a bluff

And it fell off, it would just be tough.

I shouldn’t expect others to give

It was foolish in that place to live.

 

Should I then undertake to rebuild

In a place I would likely be killed?

Proceed to weep and moan?

To expect a government loan?

 

Then insurance try to buy

Complain because it’s high?

“It’s just simply not fair!

I do so love living there.”

 

It should be quite out of reach

To build back on the beach.

Please stay out there no more.

Move inland from the shore.