Nevin's Data "Points"

The tail end of hurricane season — and more specifically the disastrous flooding of Hurricane Florence — brings to mind my last serious brush with nature’s fury. It was 2011, and we had just dropped our youngest off for his first semester of college in North Carolina, stopped off long enough in Washington, DC to check in with our daughters (both in college there at the time), and then sped home up the east coast to Connecticut with reports of Hurricane Irene’s potential destruction and probable landfall(s) close behind. We arrived home, unloaded in record time, and rushed straight to the local hardware store to stock up for the coming storm. We weren’t the only ones to do so, of course. And what we had most hoped to acquire (a generator) was not to be found — there, or at that moment, apparently anywhere in the state. What made that situation all the more infuriating was that, while the prospect of a hurricane landfall near our Connecticut home was relatively rare...

Watching the incredible, heart-rending coverage this past weekend of Hurricane Harvey’s devastation, I was reminded of a personal experience with nature’s fury. It was 2011, and we had just deposited our youngest off for his first semester of college, stopped off long enough in Washington, DC to visit our daughters (both in college there at the time), and then sped home up the East Coast with reports of Hurricane Irene’s potential destruction and probable landfall(s) close behind. We arrived home, unloaded in record time, and rushed straight to the local hardware store to stock up for the coming storm. We weren’t the only ones to do so, of course. And what we had most hoped to acquire (a generator) was not to be found – there, or at that moment, apparently anywhere in the state. What made that situation all the more infuriating was that, while the prospect of a hurricane landfall near our Connecticut home was relatively rare, we’d already had one narrow miss with an earlier hurric...