By Doug Draper
As the friendly crystal-ball gazer Professor Marvel said to his horse as a tornado was the winds turned violent during the opening scenes of the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’, “We better get under cover Sylvester. There is a storm blowing up … A whopper!”. Looks like it is going to be a whopper.”
According to projections, here comes one storm, destined to blast Western New York and Southern Ontario with a vengeance. .
According to one of the reports I heard on CBC this October 28, the St. Catharines, Ontario area could be “the bull’s eye” for this storm as it rages its way, with flooding rains and winds on steroids, on a northwestern trajectory through Western New York and into Southern Ontario. All of this drama is expected to begin for our area sometime during the middle or later hours of this Monday, October 29 and continue through the following Tuesday.
So get ready folks. Get whatever batteries, candles, matches and anything else you need for a possible breakdown of electrical lines (a functional battery-powered radio can come in very handy at a time like this), and remove or secure anything on your yards that may break or blow away, and try to keep from parking your car under a tree.
The best of luck to all of us and let’s just hope that the Professor Marvels forecasting weather are wrong around some of the worst-case scenarios they have put out there on this one.
As for all of you neo-cons, evangelicals, libertarian and other flat-earth people out there who don’t believe anything humans are doing to the ecology of this planet is contributing to the higher frequency of severe weather – from drought and above-average, baking temperatures (including the premature spring we had this past March that cost food growers and consumers untold billions of dollars) to flash rains and flooding, and damaging winds – have a nice week. And remember, if any of you neo-cons and libertarians do suffer any hardship as a result of this storm, don’t violate your principles by expecting our asking for any help from government bodies. Remember, government is the enemy.
As for the rest of us, if this storm does turn out to be the whopper some forecasters are predicting, Niagara At Large invites you to share any stories or photo or video images of it with our readers. You can send these to drapers@vaxxine.com and we will do our best to post your stories and images if we can get our computers on during and in the immediate aftermath of this one.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. NOTE that NAL only posts comments from individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
Brilliant commentary! Your “neo-cons, evangelicals, libertarians, and other flat earth people” were my dumber than dirt people until I realized that I was insulting the intelligence of dirt. After all this planet is trying to tell us and all that so many of us are ignoring while merrilly going about raping and pillaging our world for reasons of power and greed, how can I not say that the “neo-cons” etc… are so far below the intellect of the dirt that I think their category of stupidity too low to be compared to anything in the entire universe. Even an omeba can tell that what we are doing is causing the weather and eco conditions to repeatably respond with what are clear warnings to decease and desist murdering our oceans and lands before all hope is lost. I will live in a cardboard box before I will be a part of this insanity. Call me a tree hugger, call me a nature nut, call me anti-progress but don’t call me to apologize because I won’t go to war against this planet.
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Ewwww! Bad government. LOL!
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Well said Pat.
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Not Again I Hope!
While I hope it doesn’t, this storm is shaping up to become another Hurricane Hazel. While I was only 12 at the time I remember that hurricane well. I lived in East York and we had a house in Richmond Hill. The house had a basement full of water and the field where the creek across the road ran had become a lake just below the Dunlop Observatory. Neighbours’ homes, which lay lower on the street than ours, had muddy water flowing rapidly through them.
A family friend died when the fire truck he was on was swept off a bridge by the rapidly rising waters. His skeletal remains were found several years ago not far from the bridge.
Another friend’s cottage, where we stayed each summer, and all those in the same valley completely vanished as they were washed away to Lake Ontario by the waters of Maple Creek. Yet, that same torrent of water was ordinarily a tiny creek that my brother needed to dam up for me to sit in when I was a toddler.
My dad and two older bothers were nearly trapped by the rapidly rising waters as they slowly made their way home from Richmond Hill after boarding up the windows of our home to prevent the storm breaking them.
To this day I remember rains like I have never seen since and the rivers of water washing down our street. I certainly remember the pictures of houses floating down the Humber River.
Let’s hope this storm isn’t as destructive to our province as was Hurricane Hazel!
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This may be of interest …
http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/blog/paul-beckwith/hold-folks%E2%80%A6-times-they-are-changin%E2%80%99
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Wow! New York and the East Coast sure got it. We were spared the worst.
Fortunately, we did not experience here another Hurricane Hazel. However, until we understand and do something about our impact on this planet we will get more — and worse. Surely we humans are the most dangerous animals on this planet!
We have raped the earth and Nature has a way of getting even.
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Our Province learned a hard lesson from Hurricane Hazel, about not building close to ravines and did a lot of flood plain mapping, this new information has proved very useful in protecting lives and property, Welland to the Niagara River was once designated flood plain but they used Hurricane Hazel criteria as a template, after much lobbying by citizens who found these restrictions did not make much sense the Province came up with a once in a hundred years storm ,as a new formula , as Ontario is so large one size does not fit all.
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I’m always amazed at the number of people who care so much about their property values in some areas that they oppose flood plain mapping to possibly guard the lives of futer generations. Short sighted in my book. Those who heeded the warnings from Hurrican Hazel need to be commended.
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