Today is August 16, the 228th day of 2021. Aretha Franklin died three years ago today (impermanence is swift), but Madonna was born 63 years ago on this day, although I don't think that's a fair karmic exchange. On this date in 1920, Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was hit on the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees, and died early the next day. Chapman was the second player to die from injuries sustained in a Major League Baseball game; the first was Doc Powers in 1909.
I shouldn't be surprised, but forecasts for Fred's path continue to trend eastward, and now the National Hurricane Center has it tracking directly over Atlanta. For those of you unfamiliar with Southeast geography, Atlanta is almost halfway between Tuesday morning's black "D" dot and Tuesday evening's white "D" dot. In other words, it should be right over us around 2:00 pm tomorrow.
Although Fred is expected to downgrade from a tropical storm to a tropical depression sometime during the day tomorrow, The Weather Channel is still predicting 30-mile-per-hour winds here in Atlanta, and 4 to 7 inches inches of rain, with local downpours up to 10 inches. I'm fully expecting to lose power sometime during the day and have already stocked up on candles, batteries, and premade sandwiches and salads to sustain me through the blackout.
Here's an idea: how about using some of those infrastructure dollars to bury utility lines, not only for general aesthetics and safety, but so the affluent Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta doesn't lost power like some Third World nation every time there's a storm?
The good news, at least for Atlanta, is that Grace has apparently decided to wreak maximum misery by passing right over the epicenter of last weekend's Haitian earthquake, but then heading pretty straight toward Tampico, Mexico, pretty much avoiding the United States altogether.
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