Hurricane "Bertha"

Another slow news day in the Low Country, I'd guess that without a photo of Al Parish in leg irons being whisked away to some undisclosed Federal Prison Camp, the local media decided to run with the "Bertha" story for a few more days.



One local television station even resorted to showing stock footage of a sailboat bouncing wildly at it's mooring as sea spray whipped into froth in the background, while the news anchor gave the standard lat. and long coordinates of BERTHA!

Bertha is a good news story because Bertha, is a great hurricane name. Bertha gives us an image of a large lumbering menace, churning angrily across the Atlantic ocean, like a women scorned looking for a wayward husband whose name might be Ed cowering in some dimly lit bar.

Hurricane Tristan, Jennifer or Heather just don't offer the same effect as BERTHA!

In fact the rest of this year's Hurricane names are rather dull.

Dolly, Fay, and Rene, sound like a sewing club. Kyle, Laura and Marco don't do much to instill fear. This year's list will end somewhere in the chill of October with Wilfred. Nothing terribly ominous about the name Wilfred or Fred for short either.

Two names this year are even funny, Hanna and Nanna the 7th and 14th named storms of 2008. Now that Cold Play song that has been playing in my head has been replaced with Hanna, Hanna, bo Nana ..... UGH!

Camille of course is the all time "Perfect" named storm, a name that just sounds like trouble.

I wish that they had stuck with just female names, and honestly I'd rather shy away from the Latino influenced names as well. Cristobal is a nice port but a bad name for a Hurricane, Edouard, Gustav round out the international influence French and Nordic names that most assume are Latino names.

Next year's list has some great hurricane names Claudette, Danny and Grace have over tones of power and destruction but then there is that name "Fred".

I just can't imagine telling my family it's time to pack up the car and evacuate the peninsula because of Fred. There's just all kinds of wrong naming a hurricane Fred.

So while I stare mindlessly at the "Hurricane" supplies that have suddenly been placed front and center at the Lowes on Folly Road, I'm inclined to hope that it's all in the name, that Bertha will wobble north and fade from the newsscape and the rest of the hurricane season and all the dull names that made the list in 2008 will be just that dull as a storm named Fred.