Preparations had been going at levels of concern, up to hysteria, around Los Zacatitos for days. Some of these folks got bulldozed in the Cat 3 Odile, last September, and harbor short memories.

For me, the problem was science. There exist physical absolutes in the universe, and Earth and its conscious inhabitants are not excluded. Ideally, the human mind is a reality integrating organ, never a reality creating one. Just as naturally—we’re social animals—there was a level of understandable crowd hysteria that I took in stride. Like I said, for many, Odile was an outrage, never-happens-again deal for a lot of folks: some of whom have still not bothered—or are financially unable—to rebuild from. But on the other hand, history, per se, is not omniscient.

So, the science. It took like 5 minutes of Googling to reach absolute certainty that even if this Cat 4 Hurricane 750 miles south of us—feeding on the warmest seas in EastPac—hit us head-on dead-center, it would be some high wind gusts and heavy rain at most, tropical storm like. And even that didn’t happen.

3-4 Hours Before Closest Point of Approach