Hurrican, Schmuricane Redux Redux

As I'm typing this, Hurricane Debby is making landfall in Florida.

Hurricane Debby? What the hell? Who the hell thought that was a suitable name for a destructive storm? 

I've written about this puzzling naming phenomenon before, and this is the perfect time to dredge it up again.

Here's something else I've always wondered: Why do they always give hurricanes such bland, everyday names?

For example, right now Hurricane Earl is bearing down on the East coast of America. No offense to any readers out there named Earl, but you've got to admit, that's not a name that strikes fear into people.

If I was sitting in my house and the weatherman came on TV and said, "Run for your lives! Hurricane Earl is heading right for us! Take only what you can carry!" I'd shrug and go on with whatever I was doing.

Maybe more people would have evacuated New Orleans five years ago if Hurricane Katrina hadn't been named after a sexy Russian exchange student.

If they want people to take hurricanes seriously and evacuate the coastlines, they need to stop naming them Otto and Virginie* and start calling them Hurricane DESTRUKTORR or Hurricane EXTERMINUS. Now that would get the population's attention! No one would ignore a hurricane warning like that!

So here you go, National Hurricane Center. I'm sending you a revised list of 21 hurricane names for 2010 to replace your wimpy monikers (spellings are intentional):

· Annihilator
· Blastarr
· Crusher
· Destruktorr
· Exterminus
· Fearasaurus Death
· Ginormitron
· Hellsender
· Implosionator
· Jackal-gnashor
· Killotronn
· Lay-waste-acuss
· Maimakuss
· Neutralizorr
· Oblitoratorr
· Pillaguss
· Ransackulon
· Slaughteratorr
· Terminatus
· Vandalon
· Wreckkorr

Good luck during hurricane season, World (note that I am not trying to make light of recent hurricane victims and the extensive damage, rather I'm mocking the National Weather Service for what I consider a stupid naming system).

You Are Like A Hurricane

Regular readers of Bob Canada's BlogWorld know that for years now I've been taking the National Hurricane Center to task for the ridiculous names they give to storms. 

I posited that people are less likely to listen to the Center's warnings and evacuate their homes when they're told that Hurricane Timmy is bearing down on them. I suggested people would have a healthier fear of the storms if they had names like Annihilator and Destruktorr.

Welp, it looks like I was right. And this time science is there to back me up! And you thought all this blog was good for was amateur movie reviews and extreme nitpicking.

Researchers at the University of Illinois recently studied six decades worth of storm data, and determined that hurricanes with female names are more deadly, because the public perceives them as less threatening than those with male names, and therefore take fewer precautions to protect themselves.

They suggested that simply changing a hurricane's name from Charley to Sally could triple its death rate. Triple! 

See? I was totally right about this (minus the gender bias, that is). Can you imagine anyone ever dashing down the street, shrieking, "Run for your lives! Hurricane Cindy is coming!"

So please, National Hurricane Center, I'm begging you. Stop giving hurricanes such weak and fuzzy names. Give them monikers that strike fear and dread into those in the paths of the storms. Ominous, fearful, and-- dare I say it-- manly names, that no one can afford to disregard.

In the interest of public safety, I once again offer my list of suitably ominous Hurricane Names. You're welcome.

· Annihilator
· Blastarr
· Crusher
· Destruktorr
· Exterminus
· Fearasaurus Death
· Ginormitron
· Hellsender
· Implosionator
· Jackal-gnashor
· Killotronn
· Lay-waste-acuss
· Maimakuss
· Neutralizorr
· Oblitoratorr
· Pillaguss
· Ransackulon
· Slaughteratorr
· Terminatus
· Vandalon
· Wreckkorr

Oh, For Pete's Sake!

If you're a regular reader of my blog, as millions are, you know of my highly publicized feud with the National Hurricane Center (it was in all the papers) over their insistence of handing out insipid names to deadly hurricanes and destructive tropical storms.

For example, last month Florida was menaced by the terrifying Hurricane Debbie. Right now the East Coast is in the path of... Hurricane Fabio.

Yep, you read right, Fabio. The beefy, golden-tressed Adonis who's adorned a thousand romance novel covers. 

Who would be afraid of such a storm? What's Hurricane Fabio going to do, come flex and pose on my lawn? Few people are going to take such a storm seriously.

Why can't they give the storms appropriately frightening names? Hurricane DeathStorm or Destructorr (the extra "r" is intentional, to make it even more frightening), that sort of thing. I'd be much more likely to flee for my life from such aptly-named storms than I would the meekly-named Debbie and Fabio.

According the Hurricane Center's list, for the remainder of the year we can look forward to storms such as Kristy, Norman, Patty, Sandy and Zeke (!). I'm trembling already.

Why don't they just name the storms Herbert Noodlemeyer and get it over with already?

My Annual Plea For The National Weather Service To Stop Giving Hurricanes Stupid Names

Once again, as I do every year, I am imploring the National Weather Service to do something about the less than impressive names it assigns to tropical storms and hurricanes.

As we speak, Tropical Storm Debbie is ravaging the Florida peninsula. Yeah, I said Debbie.

It's bad enough that people are losing their homes, property and even lives, but to lose them to Tropical Storm Debbie... It's embarrassing. These people have suffered enough, they don't need to be mortified on top of everything else.

Plus, think of the people in the storm's path who are being ordered to evacuate their homes. Nobody's going to evacuate because Debbie's heading their way. Who could blame them? "What's that you say, Mr. Civil Defense Worker? You want I should drop everything and leave my home because Tropical Storm Debbie's coming this way? Who's this Debbie anyway? How much trouble could she cause? I'll take my chances, thanks. Come back when Hurricane Death Scythe is bearing down on me, then maybe we'll talk."

Death Storm 2012. Now there's a name that'll get people's attention!