Preparing for a hurricane on a small, flat, wealthy island in the north Atlantic is a radically different proposition from preparing for a hurricane in a city precariously situated at the junction of a major river and a major gulf with long-standing sewerage and drainage issues and plagued by social inequalities; or on a small, mountainous and relatively poor island in the Caribbean.

Could she be honing her skills in stating the obvious? you ask. That is certainly possible. Today, however, Bermuda‘s bloggers were posting up a storm — if you’ll pardon the pun — as they prepared for the arrival of hurricane Florence. In summarising their commentary for this Global Voices article, I was prompted to consider the implications of being able to — having the mental space/time/leisure to — blog about the act of preparing for a hurricane, about the process of evacuation, about going down to a local bay to romp in the big, hurricane-induced waves, about popping down to the South Shore to shoot a video or two, about having to switch to blogging from your cell phone because your DSL connection went down. (And before somebody else does, let me point out that, were a hurricane to hit Trinidad, these are exactly the kinds of things I’d probably be blogging about, expect maybe the part about cavorting in the waves).

But to get back to Bermuda, CNN and “all the major networks” are said to be there covering the action, and a rumour about a power outage was dismissed as false (false, I tell you! A power outage false! Instead of only too real, not to mention imposed without warning! Speaking of which — let me hit “Save” while we’re at it). Even the Bermuda government was using its newly launched blog (!) to disseminate information.

So it is with good reason, then, that Bermuda isn’t considered part of the Caribbean.

(This started off as a quite sincere, straightforward entry — I’m not sure what happened. Don’t you hate it when blog posts turn weird and cynical on you?)

UPDATE (7:32 AM, Monday; September 11, 2006): Seems the power did go out in Bermuda after all.