Cyclone

It feels unbelievably odd to watch with such detachment (physical and psychological) as Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast. I'm not even at work - I'm visiting my dad in Southern California, going for long hikes, catching up with friends, playing piano & violin (fiddling while Rome burns?), taking naps in the middle of the afternoon just because...

I can't say I'm not following the storm's progress without some interest: with friends from Pensacola to Houston, and a house sitting snugly (on high ground and safely inland) in Mobile, I can scarce ignore it entirely. But this year I have no responsibilities: I'm not policing up loose gear and boarding up windows at home, not being recalled to the ship, not getting underway for storm moorings or hurricane avoidance...or as in my first assignment, not positioning logistical response teams like pieces on a gigantic chess board, safely out of the storm's predicted (and ever-changing) path, folks for damage assessment, repair and rebuilding, evacuation, food, water, fuel, claims, legal assistance, counseling, financial support, spare boat and aircraft parts, transportation, temporary lodging, command posts, generators and other disaster supplies, staging areas...even folks to handle the endless flow of personnel into and out of the affected areas, people carefully siphoned from units across the country. Not attending meetings. Not giving briefings or typing situation reports. Not butting heads with those well senior to me. Not waking from nightmares of the drowned and drowning, worrying for the hundredth time if I'd done enough to prepare or respond. Not surviving on a few hours of broken sleep, nourished only on a large daily Nalgene bottle of orange juice.

(Yeah, someday - when my career's no longer in the balance - I'll probably write a book about all I saw and heard and meddled in...)

My successor at that first assignment called me a couple days ago, sweating bullets over the storm. She's been lucky so far - the past two years were mercifully free of Ivans and Katrinas and Charleys. She wanted to pull me out to Virginia to help her, which normally I would have jumped at, but I'm not exactly free to cut my moorings right now. "You think they have a radiation table there?" I asked her. I tried to reassure her. She'll be fine. She's got a top-notch civilian working for her who was my right-hand man in Katrina. We put a lot of good policies in place after the storm. And this year, thank goodness, the residents and governments are taking the threat seriously and evacuating ahead of time.

So here I sit with this strange detachment, checking the NHC page now and then with mild curiosity, wondering idly if I'll need to alter my road trip to avoid washed-out causeways or if I'll have trouble picking up my car or if a tree might fall on my house. But this year, for once, there's nothing I can do about any of it.