When Hurricanes Kill

That mean old Hurricane Irene, a killer storm that, according to reporters who all use the same thesaurus, has been churning and roaring up the East Coast for days, is now on the wane after allegedly causing the deaths of many people.

In defense of Mother Nature, I ask--how exactly does a hurricane kill? Let us count the ways:

1. A sleeping child in Virginia was crushed by a tree crashing through the roof of his house.
2. A N. Carolina passenger died in a car crash at an intersection where traffic lights were out.
3. A N. Carolina man walking about in the storm was crushed by a flying tree limb.
4. A passenger died in a car crushed by a falling tree in Virginia.
5. A S. Carolina man had a heart attack while boarding up his windows in the storm.
6. A Florida surfer drowned in heavy waves.

Not to be too nit-picky, but it seems to me that all those deaths were suicides, except for the sleeping child. As for the surfer, rescuers aren’t sure if the blow to his head that did him in was from his surfboard of if he hit the bottom of the ocean floor; either way, it clearly was not the hurricane that killed him. Just like guns don't kill people, hurricanes rarely come after you. They do blow things around and make things fall over, but since Man comes equipped with two eyes and hurricanes only have one, we can be tricky and hide from them. So what I plan to do, as I sit in the path of that oncoming killer storm, is to stay inside. (I wish my parents were alive so I could remind them of when they sent me out into Hurricane Donna. Bet they'd be sorry.)