Still Life with Robin: My Problem with Debby

by Peggy Robin 

I'm back from vacation a day late, due to the outer reaches of Hurricane Debby, causing travel disruptions all the way from South Carolina to DC and on up the east coast as far as my vacation cabin on the shores of  Lake George in upstate New York. That's why my "Still Life with Robin" column is a day late.

I've had my share of hurricane trouble, starting with Hurricane Agnes in June 1972, which caused the collapse of the East-West Highway bridge, just a mile or so away from our apartment in Bethesda, Then in 1985 Hurricane Bob canceled my flight on PeoplExpress Airlines, and I ended up sleeping on the floor of Newark Airport along with a few hundred others who couldn't get hotel rooms for the night. (And I never did get a refund from PeoplExpress, which went bankrupt shortly thereafter, defaulting on all its debts). In August of 2011 Hurricane Irene left us without electricity for more than a week. That's just off the top of my head. If I really did a deep dive, I'm sure I'd come up with about a half-dozen other hurricane-induced travails.  

Well, there's no use complaining about the weather -- you just have to deal with it. Anyway, in this column I try to limit my objections to nit-picky little things that come my way -- usually things that have a quick fix. Like spelling mistakes. 

So, tell me, World Meteorological Organization*, why "Debby" with a Y? Who spells it that way?! Not Debbie Reynolds. Not Debbie Harry lead singer of Blondie. Not Debbie Allen, star of Fame. Not Debbie Rowe, made famous by a 3-year stint of marriage to Michael Jackson, during which time she gave birth to two of his three children. Not Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan or Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.

I can think of only one famous Debby-with-a-Y, and that's Debby Boone, the daughter of singer Pat Boone, who had a one-hit wonder with You Light Up M Life, top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for ten weeks in 1977. 

It's too late to fix things this year, but the WMO has five more years to make this right, as the list of hurricane names goes on a 6-year repeating cycle. You can see all six years' worth of names here:  http://www.mawsweather.com/hurrsixyr.html

If Debby 2024 is deemed to have caused enough destruction, it will be "retired" never to be used again. That's still to be determined by adding up all the dollar amounts in damages to property and totting up the lives lost. So there will never be another Hurricane Katrina (2005). Same for Hurricane Andrew (1992), and Superstorm Sandy (2012), and Agnes (1972) or (Camille (1969). The complete list of retired hurricane names is here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retired_Atlantic_hurricane_names

There are any number of controversies as to what makes a hurricane devastating enough to meet the "retirement" standard; if you want to be able to hold your own in an argument with a die-hard hurricane nerd, read this: https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2024-05-16-2024-hurricane-names-list-three-storms-should-have-been-retired

If Debby is not bad enough to be retired, when it comes around again in 2030, let's hope it comes back as Hurricane Debbie. And if Debby does go down in weather infamy as a one-of-a-kind named storm, I urge WMO to consider any of the following female D names as substitutes: Daphne, Dawn, Denise, Desiree. My vote goes to Daphne. She was the water nymph of Greek myth who was relentlessly pursued by Apollo. To escape his unwanted sexual predation, she transformed herself into a laurel tree. (Daphne is the Greek word for the laurel tree). It's a tale of divine danger with a rebirth at the end -- all very fitting for such a destructive force of nature.

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* The WMO is the organization tasked -- among its other, weightier duties -- with naming hurricanes  

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays, or in the event of a  hurricane, on Sundays.