“A meteorological bomb.”
That’s what the guy on the Weather Channel called a winter storm that was going to hit Maryland during the early part of the new millennium.
It was supposed to start on an early Saturday morning. That Friday afternoon, my wife Lisa and I did the usual Maryland thing. We purchased food, firewood, flashlight batteries and the whole deal expecting the worst. Remember video stores? Our local video store was almost cleaned out by people like us who thought they’d be stuck at home.
Saturday morning at 6. Lisa wakes up expecting to see us living in a winter wonderland.
Nothing.
Not a flake of snow to be found.
We still had seven videos to watch. The “meteorological bomb?” Well, it bombed.
And the TV weather guys went into “well we said it could possibly miss the state” mode.
Right.
Already we know that a tropical storm named Arthur is going to push back our Friday, July 4, Fireworks festivities back a night to Saturday
Jessica Waters, Ocean City’s Communications Manager, confirmed that in the resort’s State Fire Marshal Office Permit and in the USCG Permit, “we have Saturday July 5th as a rain date. Of course that could be rained out as well. If we move to the rain date, we lost the bands/entertainment and it would be just fireworks.”
Susan Jones, Executive Director of Ocean City’s Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association, said that the “mere mention of bad weather makes people freak out.”
She added that resort hotels and motels aren’t sold out for the July 4th weekend. And she said that the media has a great deal to do with it.
“We’ve had phone calls and cancellations,” she said. “It’s sad that the mere mention of a storm creates panic among visitors. For us to have vacancies with July 4th coming is not good.”
Mention the weather to Joe Theobald on Tuesday afternoon, and he’s not ready to throw in the towel quite yet. Theobald is the Town of Ocean City’s Emergency Services Director.
“It’s a little early for people to get their feathers up in the air,” he said. “It’s a tropical depression. Hopefully it can turn and go out to sea. Do I think we’re going to get brushed from something? Yes.
“We want the community and the holiday to be vibrant,” he continued. “I would hate to postpone the fireworks from Friday to Saturday. If need be, you do it.”
Still, Theobald, who’s been through his share of storms and false alarms is still hoping that “this will turn out to sea and come Saturday and Sunday, we’ll have descent weather.
“I’m not hyped up about this one.”
Berlin Mayor Gee Williams is a bit hyped up. It has nothing to do with the weather; it’s instead how it’s being presented on the major networks and websites.
“Every time a handful of clouds get together, the weather commentators seem almost glad that a storm could happen,” he said. The Mayor said that that the hype he sees on certain commercial weather stations and websites “borders on being a criminal act.”
Locally, he said the weather casters are much more fair, because they know our area.
The national meteorological scenario, he called “the 21st century’s version of yellow journalism.”
“There’s no penalty for this,” he added. “They exaggerate, they cause pure fear. Their words impact good, hard working people, while they profit from the storm coverage.”
No problem guessing where Berlin’s mayor stands.
Getting back to Jessica Waters. She said that storms like Arthur can “complicate things.” She recollects that in the past 15 years only once has the city had to cancel fireworks due to weather.
But even by postponing for one night to Saturday, she said, “it changes our operations significantly as well as the manpower we have prepared. It’s a roll of the dice moment, leaving something in the hands of Mother Nature.”
Waters said that a recent meeting Mayor Rick Meehan kiddingly told Theobald “all of this was up to him, make the storm go away.” But Waters has another barometer she uses to measure the severity of a storm. If Weather Channel personality Jim Cantore is in town, she’s worried.
“If Cantore’s not in Ocean City, we’re in good shape. “He hasn’t been here for a few years.”
She summed it up pretty well by saying in a Tuesday interview, “it’s wait and see. It’s quite a task to change the operations of two shows on two separate ends of town. But it’s not impossible.”
Let’s hope that Arthur stays away or makes as little impact as possible.
And hopefully we won’t see Bertha, the next name on the World Meteorological Organization’s list, for a long time if ever.
The names that follow: Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.
Nana? A hurricane? You’ve got to be kidding me. My wife is Nana to our grandchildren.
That’s what the guy on the Weather Channel called a winter storm that was going to hit Maryland during the early part of the new millennium.
It was supposed to start on an early Saturday morning. That Friday afternoon, my wife Lisa and I did the usual Maryland thing. We purchased food, firewood, flashlight batteries and the whole deal expecting the worst. Remember video stores? Our local video store was almost cleaned out by people like us who thought they’d be stuck at home.
Saturday morning at 6. Lisa wakes up expecting to see us living in a winter wonderland.
Nothing.
Not a flake of snow to be found.
We still had seven videos to watch. The “meteorological bomb?” Well, it bombed.
And the TV weather guys went into “well we said it could possibly miss the state” mode.
Right.
Already we know that a tropical storm named Arthur is going to push back our Friday, July 4, Fireworks festivities back a night to Saturday
Jessica Waters, Ocean City’s Communications Manager, confirmed that in the resort’s State Fire Marshal Office Permit and in the USCG Permit, “we have Saturday July 5th as a rain date. Of course that could be rained out as well. If we move to the rain date, we lost the bands/entertainment and it would be just fireworks.”
Susan Jones, Executive Director of Ocean City’s Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association, said that the “mere mention of bad weather makes people freak out.”
She added that resort hotels and motels aren’t sold out for the July 4th weekend. And she said that the media has a great deal to do with it.
“We’ve had phone calls and cancellations,” she said. “It’s sad that the mere mention of a storm creates panic among visitors. For us to have vacancies with July 4th coming is not good.”
Mention the weather to Joe Theobald on Tuesday afternoon, and he’s not ready to throw in the towel quite yet. Theobald is the Town of Ocean City’s Emergency Services Director.
“It’s a little early for people to get their feathers up in the air,” he said. “It’s a tropical depression. Hopefully it can turn and go out to sea. Do I think we’re going to get brushed from something? Yes.
“We want the community and the holiday to be vibrant,” he continued. “I would hate to postpone the fireworks from Friday to Saturday. If need be, you do it.”
Still, Theobald, who’s been through his share of storms and false alarms is still hoping that “this will turn out to sea and come Saturday and Sunday, we’ll have descent weather.
“I’m not hyped up about this one.”
Berlin Mayor Gee Williams is a bit hyped up. It has nothing to do with the weather; it’s instead how it’s being presented on the major networks and websites.
“Every time a handful of clouds get together, the weather commentators seem almost glad that a storm could happen,” he said. The Mayor said that that the hype he sees on certain commercial weather stations and websites “borders on being a criminal act.”
Locally, he said the weather casters are much more fair, because they know our area.
The national meteorological scenario, he called “the 21st century’s version of yellow journalism.”
“There’s no penalty for this,” he added. “They exaggerate, they cause pure fear. Their words impact good, hard working people, while they profit from the storm coverage.”
No problem guessing where Berlin’s mayor stands.
Getting back to Jessica Waters. She said that storms like Arthur can “complicate things.” She recollects that in the past 15 years only once has the city had to cancel fireworks due to weather.
But even by postponing for one night to Saturday, she said, “it changes our operations significantly as well as the manpower we have prepared. It’s a roll of the dice moment, leaving something in the hands of Mother Nature.”
Waters said that a recent meeting Mayor Rick Meehan kiddingly told Theobald “all of this was up to him, make the storm go away.” But Waters has another barometer she uses to measure the severity of a storm. If Weather Channel personality Jim Cantore is in town, she’s worried.
“If Cantore’s not in Ocean City, we’re in good shape. “He hasn’t been here for a few years.”
She summed it up pretty well by saying in a Tuesday interview, “it’s wait and see. It’s quite a task to change the operations of two shows on two separate ends of town. But it’s not impossible.”
Let’s hope that Arthur stays away or makes as little impact as possible.
And hopefully we won’t see Bertha, the next name on the World Meteorological Organization’s list, for a long time if ever.
The names that follow: Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.
Nana? A hurricane? You’ve got to be kidding me. My wife is Nana to our grandchildren.