Is The East Coast Swimming To Work?

Has Uproxx News decided to just talk about the weather today? Sure, but with good reason:

Earl looks set to kick some major coastline.
We promise, we will not resort to any “My Name Is Earl” jokes, which immediately became lame once this hurricane approached U.S. shores and we started actually caring about it.
We also promise no TGIF jokes. That alone should make us your primary news source.

So far, Earl hasn’t done much to make America hate it, since we don’t care about the Caribbean, but it’s already knocked out all the power in Antigua (yes, the entire country), wiped out power and water for the entire British Virgin Islands, and caused about $150 million in damage. So, yeah, Earl’s not fooling around.

So who are we going to see on the nightly news tomorrow in storm footage that looks exactly the same as all the other storm footage we see every year?

Pretty much everybody on the shoreline of the East Coast. Earl’s not really going to touch much land, but he’s going to drop a ton of rain on everybody. It might make sense to stock up on sandbags if your area’s prone to flooding.
Most of the folks inland, though, are just going to have a dreary Friday. Lots of rain, maybe some strong winds, but really nothing worth freaking out over.

Is there a silver lining in this destructive and uncomfortably moist cloud? You bet, lower gas prices!

Sure, partially it’s because we’ve got a whole lot of gas handy, but all the cars have been either repossessed or sold to Canadians on Craigslist, so nobody’s been driving this summer. But instead of staying indoors, most people are spending Labor Day a bit further inland and leaving today, especially in New England, which is in the middle of a miserable heat wave anyway, so why not knock off work on Thursday?
So, take heart, we get cheap gas and yet the economy is still supported, so we still have that god-given right, at least. Now about this whole “actually having to earn a good credit rating” thing…

LINKS

Antigua powerless, waterless, pretty freakin’ annoyed. (Go Jamaica)
Here’s a link to the National Hurricane Center, just in case you want to follow it like a football game, or if you really love press releases written AS IF A METEROLOGIST WANTED TO SHOUT RIGHT AT YOUR EYES. (NOAA)
And finally, hurricanes give us gas. (Patriot Ledger)

MORE NEWS

Speaking of natural disasters, here’s an amusing one: somebody in Arkansas left too many flowers in a flowerpot, and they heated up so much from “decomposition” they actually spontaneously combusted. Yep, even flowers want to burn down Arkansas. (AP)
Transitioning over to man-made disasters, some moron was trying to dazzle pilots with a laser at Paris Orly airport, because we guess he enjoys being arrested on terrorism charges (Reuters)

KNOW YOUR STATS

Earl is only the second major hurricane of the hurricane season, right behind Hurricane Danielle, and the third hurricane overall. Sexists on the internet guffaw about Earl being beaten by a woman, and then he rips off their roof and slams them into the cow they have a close relationship with. No, we meant the animal. (AOL News)
So far, Earl’s hitting 145 miles per hour with his winds. But at 88 miles per hour, he can move around in time anyway, so it’s kind of a moot point. (Baltimore Sun)