the drive was going to be about 9-10 hours or so. we knew that the front end would be belabored by traffic – taking hours to get through the city, but, once on the interstate, figured we’d be cruising. ahh….not the best of figuring.

there was the hour we spent at the delaware water gap…not outside enjoying the views and a trail…but inside big red, crawling our way out of new jersey into pennsylvania.

then the hour plus we spent just lingering – barely moving – through this one section of i80 in the very wide state of PA – where the department of transportation had decided that – for miles – it would be necessary to have cones blocking a lane so that eventually – miles later – they could do roadwork. now, i am all for safety for the workers on these roads, but cones for miles with no indication of any work is a tad bit frustrating.

so, then, finally, we were moving along. we had a whole bunch more hours to go – about 4-5 when we stopped about 70 miles from the ohio border to get gas and have a little pit stop. we could see the sky getting darker to the west and thought we’d get ahead of the necessities.

and then we got our first tornado warning. warning, not watch.

d pumped gas while i checked the weather radar. it looked ugly to our west and the prediction was for extended storms, hail, extreme wind and, yes, perhaps a tornado or two.

we pulled next to the station and sat while the first of the storms came through, pummeling us with torrential rain and wind. we were grateful we weren’t driving in it.

pulling up the radar again, i looked at some points along our journey to that night’s airbnb. things did not look good for the rest of the evening. it was already close to 5, we had been driving for 9 hours by then and we still had hours to go – through the weather mess on our app. we didn’t quite know what to do.

i looked around as we sat there in that lot. to my left – high on a hill next to us – sat what looked like either a hotel or a condo building which, given the exit we had taken, didn’t seem likely. pulling up google maps, i found out it was, indeed, a hotel.

i pulled up their website.

just to check.

because we were already tired and the road ahead looked pretty scary and long.

about a half hour later we checked into the hotel, forfeiting our airbnb – erring on the side of safety. the couple behind us in line at the front desk – about our age – were doing the same thing, forgoing their reservations several hours down the road.

many times over that night and the next day we marveled at the serendipity of the hotel-on-the-hill location next to us and were grateful for it and for our ponderous decision.

the dawning morning fog the next day lifted before we started driving and there was no indication of storm until we were closer to home. we had tornado watches for the last couple hours while we were driving, which made us jittery – well, it definitely made me jittery.

the tornado sirens went off when we got home.

because, well, climate change is real. global warming is real. weather events are becoming extreme as a result of humans’ lack of care about greenhouse gases, fossil fuels and pollutants in the air, water cycles. ridiculously hot heatwaves, intense droughts, insane amounts of precipitation and flooding, supersized hail, coastal storm surges, damaging winds, severe widespread wildfires, and destructive tornadoes caused by warmer, more humid air. this could potentially all be catastrophic, yet the current administration is ignoring all the signs of peril to our earth, gluttonous greed intentionally perpetuating the damage.

a few days later, in our backyard and starting to prepare the gardens for spring, we looked up.

the clouds – mammous and with these rope-like threads – were suddenly overhead. the same kind of clouds as the night we arrived home. we both sighed, suddenly nervous about what front was coming.

there have been plenty of scary looking clouds. there have been plenty of emergencies across our land. there has been plenty of devastation. there have been plenty of catastrophes due to weather events.

“the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change’s sixth assessment report in 2021 (five years ago!!!) noted that the human-caused rise in greenhouse gases increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events worldwide.”

you gotta wonder when those “in charge” might care.

i read a quote while perusing around the issues of this extreme weather, climate change, this earth. it seems sadly apropos: “unfortunately for some of those people, it won’t hit home for them until it really hits home for them.”

is that what we are waiting for?

what the hell are we doing?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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