Hurricane facts

Between 1950 and 2004, there were a total of 96 hurricanes making landfall on the continental USA, of which 64 had women's names.

I'm not surprised, women are just like landfalling hurricanes. Fuelled by heat they roar in, stir up a wild shit storm, and then move off leaving only desolation in their wake. When I was seventeen I too was devastated by a Katrina, so I know something of New Orleans' pain.

Hurricanes were originally named by an Australian meteorologist after contemporary politicians*. Imagine being able to categorically and scientifically state that Bush was wandering erratically through Louisiana, or that Rumsfeld was devastating the South East.


* Dunn, G.E. and B.I. Miller (1960): Atlantic Hurricanes, Louisiana State Univ. Press, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 377pp.