Hurricane Vince

 

Hurricane Vince Is Heading My Way!

The anchor on TV said Hurricane Tammy was bearing down on the Lesser Antilles.

“You're next,” my wife said.

I am?

“Yup, there are no U names on the Hurricane list.”

No Ulysses? No Uma?

“Nope, it jumps straight to Hurricane Vince.”

I’m next.

It reminded me of a Milwaukee Braves phenom in 1957: Bob “Hurricane” Hazle, who got his nickname from the 1954 hurricane that battered the Carolina coasts.

I am about to become a hurricane: Hurricane Vince.

 I wonder what that will be like.

In 2005, I wrote a column about a real-life Kingsport girl who got her moment of fame, or infamy, from a hurricane:

 

Katrina Lahair remembers when she heard that a hurricane was going to be named after her. “At first I thought it was kind of neat. Then it was kind of weird.”

Katrina, an eleven-year-old sixth-grader at John Sevier Middle School, says that as the storm began bearing down on Florida, her friends would tease her and call her Hurricane Katrina.

But then, when it became clear that the real Hurricane Katrina was a devastating storm, the teasing died down. And now, three weeks later, the teasing is gone, the neatness is gone and weirdness is gone. Hardly anyone even mentions it to Katrina Lahair anymore except the writer who called her from the Times-News, after clearing it with her mom.

It was the mom, Trida, who gave Katrina her name. Trida’s middle name is Katrin. “We wanted something different so we added an ‘a’ to Katrin,” Trida explains.

The writer had called because he saw a list of hurricane names for the remainder of the 2005 hurricane season and spotted his own name.

After Hurricane Katrina, there were Hurricanes Lee, Maria and Nate, which fizzled out before landfall, then Hurricane Ophelia, which is currently lashing North Carolina, which will be followed in order by:

Hurricane Philippe

Hurricane Rita

Hurricane Stan

Hurricane Tammy

Hurricane Vince

Hurricane Wilma

 

Hurricane Vince?! There’s a Hurricane Vince on the horizon?

So the writer named Vince called the student named Katrina to find out what it was like to have a hurricane named after you.

“Are you glad there was a hurricane named after you?” future Hurricane Vince asked the experienced hurricane-name-sharing Katrina Lahair.

“In some ways yes and in some ways no,” Katrina answered.

Then future Hurricane Vince asked Katrina for advice: “Should I hope it fizzles out before it makes land?”

And Katrina Lahair, who had just lived through having a Hurricane share her name, had a simple answer: “Yes.”

I think I'll hope for a fizzle.