Uncertainty

CDRE Thomas Negus, USN  November 4 2010 11:04:39 PM

 

We sail into the grey ahead while cloud and sky wrestle for supremacy above.  We are steaming towards Haiti at best speed, our great flagship's massive wake a testimony to our resolve. The seas are not exceptional, windswept whitecaps dot the slate grey sea. They are expected to grow through the night as we approach, but are not forecast to be a significant impediment to the mission at hand.   

 

Clouds however, are another story.  Tomorrow, we will rely on our helicopters to sweep over the southern peninsula of Haiti and tell us, and the world, what they see.  But clouds will bedevil us if it is not clear, so we hope for a break in the mottled yonder.  As dawn breaks and skies clear we will get a better understanding of what we can do to determine Haiti's needs in the wake of the passing of the storm named Tomas. 

 

Our meteorological officer, LCDR Michael Loomis, explains that storms develop their own personalities; and Tomas it seems is of a precocious sort.  He has cloaked himself with uncertainty from the outset, never developing a clearly definable agenda.  He has frustrated forecasters and frightened those of us at sea.  Our fear is his whimsy, our resolve our only recourse to his capricious course.  If he tracks a little to the West little should happen, a little to the East and Tomas could heap widespread misery on an already stricken land.

 

So through the night CAPT Chassee will steer this great ship, directing her onward towards a land that knows not what dawn will bring. What will happen of course no one can know, thus we steam forward into the wake of the storm. What we will find we do not know.

 

 

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