The Truly Scary

Halloween.  A time for fun scariness. People dress up as ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties. None of that is very scary this year.  One word, a simple name, makes many shudder in post-disaster terror.

Sandy.

Superstorm. Hurricane. Frankenstorm.

How often can we hear words like "unprecedented" or "never-before-seen?"   We become dulled to the scenes of devastation and catastrophe. Water in subway tunnels, sand dunes burying parking meters, fires leveling blocks of homes, fronts of buildings blown away.

It doesn't matter whether it is "climate change" or just coincidence. It is the first ever hurricane to make a left turn and landfall that far north this time of the year. It is the lowest central pressure of a land-falling hurricane ever. It is the highest storm surge at Battery Park in history. Things that weren't supposed to happen. They were unthinkable.

Never" may become an unusable word- as in "It can't happen since it never has before."

That is scary.

Happy Halloween.