One of these days at work (at the restaurant), I heard everyone suddenly talking about a hurricane approaching the island and about evacuation. I didn't pay much attention to it. But then I read online that, yes, Hurricane Earl was indeed approaching and would be on the island very soon. The whole situation with the hurricane amused me more than it scared me.

Americans are such alarmists. All you could hear around you were the words “hurricane” and “evacuation.” For some reason, everyone was terrified of this hurricane. So, we decided to add fuel to the fire and painted our car :). We wrote “hurricane... coming soon” on it. And we showed this sign to everyone who drove past us. We were just having fun. We drove along empty roads and saw how all the supermarkets were being boarded up, supposedly as a precaution. Well, that was understandable. But we just couldn't understand WHY they were covering the electronics shelves in Walmart with plastic wrap. That's inside the store. I'm almost afraid to imagine how strong the hurricane would have had to be to justify those precautions. My brother and I were given two days off from work, and by that time my track had already closed, and we were both working at the restaurant. We were actually happy about it – we bought plenty of beer and drove home along the empty highway. The strongest part of the hurricane was expected at night.

When we woke up in the morning, we didn't see anything special, except for leaves that had fallen from the trees. Apparently, it was because of the strong wind. But I definitely didn't see anything that would justify a whole week of talk. Once again, the Americans overreacted.