There are many ways to tell a story.  Wilma’s indecision as to when to move and where to go has had so many stories that the public, starving for information, seems to be enclosed in some kind of lethargy that says: “Well, do something already!”  Right now as I type this piece for those waiting breathlessly for my next THINKING ALLOWED, the sun is shiny while there are clouds all around.  We have had a few short downpours but all the action is in Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula and the area just to the south and west of the Florida Keys.  Hey, wait a minute, I’m beginning to sound like the 24/7 reporters who are summarizing what we already know and are delving deeply into the personal experiences of those waiting out the approaching devastation either at home or in some shelter.  These vignettes are interspersed with reports here in South Miami by Don Noe, the local weather reporter and Max Mayfield the federal expert at divining where this storm is going to go. Wilma will dump a whole bunch of water and then there is “Alpha”.

There is not really that much to tell.  The storm is going to hit the west coast of Florida somewhere and take one of many projected paths across the state and go from a  3 to a 1 in strength when it flops into the Atlantic and then threaten the East Coast as far north as the New England States.  That much we all know for it is reported on television (I haven’t turned on the radio but am saving the batteries) on virtually any station by smiling people who somehow take the sting out of disaster while they detail it.

Wilma has been a very picky and dilatory girl.  She has been fooling around with us as she flirts around in a location that sets her up to be the biggest and worst hurricane in many a season or for all time. What is so interesting is that the tiny human animals that are in the way have not learned anything beyond the forth-coming storm of the (?) century will arrive soon – or, a little bit later.

The ancient Egyptians knew how to build against the weather.  There is little rain in the desert where they chose to build the pyramids. But time, erosion and theft of the exterior smooth surface by wily Egyptians who saw a good thing even during the Pharonaic period have left those buildings standing for thousands of years.

One might ask, why not build hurricane proof buildings in the path of hurricanes in a hurricane prone area.  The question stands and it is my fervent hope that this hurricane, this Wilma, will quiet down and not hit us even obliquely. I don’t think the builder of this Condominium built it to last as long as the pyramids.  He did, however, arrange us to pay for the land on which it rests in perpetuity.