Such a late storm to be a record-setter, yet not since 1969 has one hit the Sunshine State with this force. The Panhandle is swamped, Mexico Beach is scrubbed out.  That old-fashioned seaside village, well-kept secret, gone.  Video footage shows rubble at the dune line.  A motel, a boat?  It’s hard to tell. 

 Why do some hurricanes weaken on approach, sputter into nothing, and others gain manic strength? Warmer water may be to blame, but who really knows?

 And the way the storms seem to target one place—the unfortunate ones in the bullseye—is cruel.  You, you there, take this! The fortunate breathe easier, knowing they could be next, but not really believing it.  Fate isn’t fair, and the odds reset every season.  Some get hit, and some never do.  And if you are hit, it could be nothing much—the particulars of central pressure, speed, surge, floods, impact, are as various as the cancers our bodies breed.  Or all the kinds of love in the world (or hate).

 One thing is certain: that image of concentric swirls, scuttling closer, redly intense, haunts the state.  Each season we ask ourselves, how could we receive such force?

 (And we pray that we won’t have to.)