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By
HENRY P. RALEIGH
ART
TIMES September 2006
YOU
CAN BE sure there is any number of screenwriters busily working up scripts
for a disaster film based on the infamous Katrina. They may hold off
until the emotional heat has cooled down a bit, but I figure there are
certain studios already oiling up their wind machines and filling water
tanks — after all, these have been sitting idle ever since “Perfect
Storm”. I can’t wait, however. You see, we Long Islanders are bracing
for what we’ve been told is almost a certain hurricane this season.
Actually, this warning is issued every summer, but this time we’ve been
handed really good odds — an 85% chance of a smack on what is
little more than a long and very narrow sand box that sticks out into
the Atlantic Ocean. Now Long Islanders do take some fearful pride in
its 1938 Category 3 blow, and you can hear all about it should you have
the bad luck to bump into an ancient who was present at the time. Well,
I was myself, but I’m pretty modest about such things.
The
first hint of what was to come arrived in early Spring with a Weather
Channel’s special— a swell and unsettling digital depiction of
a Category 3 or better plowing into Brooklyn.
A mess, I can tell you what with Wall Street buried in storm
surges and all. “Deep Impact” in 1998 showed surges nearly up to the
Catskills — still, that was a Hollywood meteor and not an official
Weather Channel hurricane. We on Long Island were rather surprised to
learn that Brooklyn is the Western end of the Island. The warnings after
this came thick and fast, more as threats as if we more than deserved
a Biblical size disaster after decades of slothful living, over development,
and outrageous real estate prices. Even a major insurance company decided
they would no longer insure Long Island homes. It was time to get ready,
all right.
It
stands to reason that you can only stockpile flashlight batteries and
cans of spaghetti for so long before considering other preparatory means.
In my case I felt it would be a good idea to review disaster films to
learn how best to handle things. The 1990s were good years for natural
disaster films. I chose to ignore disasters caused by aliens, zombies,
and mysterious viruses. Most useful to my research were “Deep Impact”,
“Volcano”, “Armageddon”, “Hard Rain”, “Dante’s Peak”, “Twister”, and
“Day After Tomorrow”. I could only locate one film dealing specifically
with hurricanes — the 1937 “Hurricane” and, Dorothy Lamour notwithstanding,
this wouldn’t be up-to-date on modern calamities. There was much to
learn from these reviews, the most important of which is that there
will certainly occur several situations in a pending disaster as well
as its aftermath. You can be sure there will be a person around who
runs about wildly proclaiming a disaster is imminent and no one will
pay the slightest attention, thinking this person is a nutter and should
just shut up, for goodness sake. In my town here in Eastern Long Island,
that person would be my wife who even now has bags packed and extra
gas cans loaded in the car. At the first report that an errant breeze
is brewing off the coast of Africa she will be off like a shot.
It
is practically a guarantee, of course, that any one who has failed to
heed the warnings — and that is everyone save the nutter —
will find they are hopelessly trapped where ever they are and unable
to duck. Long Island is ready made for this one, having but two highways
leading out, both usually gridlocked day and night, and a population
that has two cars for every man, woman, and child. It is a comforting
fact, though, that in every disaster I’ve observed in film there is
invariably an heroic figure who emerges at the right moment to organize
things, calming the panic and distributing hope and good cheer all over
the place. I guess somewhere there is a Pierce Brosman or a Charlton
Heston or a Dennis Quaid when you need one — yet looking around
me I’m afraid I don’t see any one who is going to fit this role. It
won’t be my wife you can bet on that, and I won’t do it no matter how
much I may be begged. No sir, I learned from “Earthquake” that the safest
harbor is your local bar — arrive there early, get as deep in
your cups as did Walter Matthau and wait it out in happy oblivion. Incidentally,
Walter Matthau was billed in that 1974 film as ‘Walter Matuschansky’
but I don’t think a name change is necessary to survive. The thing is,
nothing can happen to funny drunks in disaster films whether on the
ground, the sea or the air — you can put your money on it.