This has been a tough week for Melissa. It is not her fault that her folks liked a nice feminine name that stoarted with “M,” the 13th letter of the alphabet. we don’t know if that is considered unlucky in placement, but her folks could not have imagined that 58 years later their bouncing baby daughter would be castigated as a storm of human nature.

“Not my fault!” She exclaimed as reports began to come in about the landfall of the biggest storm in recorded history to smash the pleasant island of Jamaica. There is a Navy carrier and an Amphibious Ready Group down there that are trying to stay out of the way.

It is too soon to assess the tragedy and Miles elected not to dwell editorially, on the impact of big storm on a small place. Telecommunications will not be back for a while and the extent of the destruction will not be known for a dor two. Part of the crowd had seen them from the steel islands on which they used as mobile airfields. Since storm Melissa was described as the biggest hurricane to hit an inhabited island in recorded history.

The one the old Salts talked about wasTyphoon Tip, a storm that developed in the northwestern Pacific in October 1979, right around this time of year. USS Midway (CV-41) was directed to get clear of the angry air. She was directed to cast off lines and head for calmer waters south of Formosa. That voyage was colorful, and the first time some had seen blue water over the bow of a determined thousand-foot steel ship.

“Tip” set her own records as the largest tropical cyclone ever observed, deep in the alphabet of sequential names with a diameter of roughly 1,380 miles. That is what our Skipper Hoagie Carmichael was ordered to avoid. Flight ops were naturally secured and all none essential personnel retreated to their racks to enjoy the steady rocking in the best way they could. Recumbent.

The surface warfare officers glowered at the Air Wing personnel who had cleared the aircraft off the decks and chained them up in the Hangar Bay. They were working hard to keep things in order against the raw power of the sky. They would have to operate safely in turmoil and supervise repairs once things settled down a bit.

That was not the case in the here-and-now. The “Tip” survivors began riding Melissa as soon as the Weather Guessers began to talk about a big disturbance in the hurricane track headed north. It began to get to her as it strengthen and began to threaten the islands. She had been able to shrug it off at first, but danger was curving north-northeast toward the islands east of Cuba.

Vic had been involved in the Haitian refugee crisis and traveled the circuit of response at Port au Prince, GTMO and Turks and Caicos. He had an idea of what was waiting for the winds in Melissa’s torrent. There was an early report of winds near two-hundred miles an hour.

Lower estimates were reported by USAF storm chasers- “only” 174 MPH when it slammed into the southwest coast and the wind began to scour the buildings and blow anything- or anyone- not anchored down the hill in a mudslide.

So, this morning there was a lot of discussion about noise and things moving suddenly that are supposed to stay anchored to something solid. There was a fair amount of animation in the Conference Room due to the news but it was dwarfed when Melissa burst into the room with her own boiling energy.

“We may be under attack!” she shouted. “There are military jets in the sky and they are louder than hell. This may be another 9/11 in the midst of storm activity!”

Those around the table nodded solemnly before they glanced aside at one another and then burst into laughter. Miles stood from his chair and waved his hands slowly to calm things down.

“Melissa, that was the Navy Blue Angels, our flight demonstration team. Our pal Jerry did two tours with them and they may be the best precision aviators in the world. They are not here to attack us, but do a commemorative flight over Arlington tomorrow. They are noisy but fun. And with the commercial traffic reduced, they are the loudest thing over DC. Because the Air Traffic Controllers are calling in sick since they are not getting paid.”

“What about the Blues?” asked Melissa. “Are they going to miss the next payday this Saturday?”

Rocket frowned. “They got paid last time because one of the Oligarchs loaned the Treasury $130 million. Plus, the pilots would fly anyway if someone would loan them a Super Hornet and a couple bucks for gas.”

There was general agreement about flying supersonic jets with a rare opportunity to buzz the capital of the Free World. Melissa waved hr hands above her head. “From the drive over from Big Pink, “I saw them fly by at least three times. Then I stopped counting. In all the time I’ve lived in DelMarVa, I’ve never seen so many fighter-jet flyovers.”

Splash put his mug down on the shiny conference table. “We’ll see if the lunatics downtown don’t start taking care of the people who defend us from the bad people who would like do some real fly-overs here.”

There was some general nodding around the table, since the retirees are still drawing checks from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and they have not started bouncing yet. If they do, there may be another unscheduled storm. And the SNAP program runs out this weekend, too.

So, with Halloween coming and the Ghouls and Ghosties buzzing around making jet engine noises there will be some other noise. It will usher in the new month on Friday at Midnight when the SNAP food stamps expire.

There is some talk that Senate Minority Leader Schumer may do something radical. they say he may tell the SNAP community to lighten on the junk food and buy something healthy when the money comes back.

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com