Cannot satisfy Jamaican people
YOU KNOW, it’s hard to please some people. But its especially hard to please Jamaicans.
So Tropical Storm Earl git up inna di Atlantic and decide say him waan pass through Jamaica and a might more dan jus’ a likkle visit. Met Office said ‘bwoy, it’s not a good look’. So the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management tell everybody fi run! OK, they do it a bit more ‘officiously’ than that, but essentially that’s the idea. We run to the wholesale and supermarket to stock up on crackers and tin boom. We run to the gas station to fill up, and we run home to (finally!) clip those hedges and generally batten down everything.
Lo and behold, Missa Earl decide say him nah stay long a Jamaica (although MoBay had flooding). Him did have plans elsewhere. Now, before some people give thanks to the Almighty (whatever you call him/she/it) dem a complain how the authorities trick dem, and a false alarm, and how is a conspiracy between dem and the supermarkets.
Now, while I know some of them were joking, others were a tad more serious. They felt the need to say the Met Office and company were too hasty. Look here, I would rather the authorities be hasty than lackadaisical! Thing is, some of the same ones who were opining about hastiness would have been the biggest mouths if they felt the authorities were too tardy. So it’s like you can’t win. There’s nothing wrong with being prepared anyway. I get it that things are tough financially (especially if certain tax plan nuh look like it mek much difference inna yuh pocket). But the key is to always be in some state of readiness for something like a natural disaster. I’m not telling people to become paranoid and turn into one of those persons who have an elaborate plan for doomsday. I’ve seen those people on television and they kinda scare me. I’m not recommending any Jamaican start building reinforced basements, collecting hazmat suits and hoarding every grain of rice in anticipation of a nuclear or other type of apocalypse. But Jamaicans do things in extremes – we are either totally oblivious to dangers or we run like the Smurfs when Gargamel is approaching.
And look, while we want to be able to predict with 100 per cent accuracy what a weather system will do, it doesn’t work that way. It’s like these forces of nature have minds of their own. You can give a somewhat accurate forecast sometime, but nobody, not even the most decorated meteorologist, nails it every time. So if di people dem tell yuh fi pack up yuh bungle dem and run to di hills, you siddung deh and play Russian roulette wid di rain.
For the record, I’m sorry Earl didn’t show his face a little more. But my reasons are more, ahm, strange. But hey, we’re in the hectic part of the season so I won’t lose heart. Let’s just say it involves swimming (wink). That’s another story for another time. Later.