In 2004 there was a film that gave us a glimpse of what things might be like in a dystopian future where global warming ran amok. The brilliant Roland Emmerich gem The Day After Tomorrow was laughed at when it came out. Well, after this weekend, folks in Texas will be asking, “Who’s laughing now?”
Try to remember for a moment that pivotal scene in midtown Manhattan. A young Jake Gyllenhaal, in love with an equally young Emmy Rossum, raced to get her lifesaving medication from a navy ship, beached on the streets of New York by an earlier tidal wave. Seeing cold air sinking into the heart of a hurricane over land and freezing everything in its path solid, he ran like the wind back into their oasis, the New York Public Library.
Now, I’m not saying that this weekend in Houston is going to be like that fateful scene in a movie that frankly should have swept the Oscars, but we did just have the worst floods in U.S. history. Look, a navy destroyer might not be parked along Allen Parkway, but we are certainly no strangers to the fury of Mother Nature. Also, Dennis Quaid is from Houston. I’m just saying.
So, when this cold front blows through on Friday, don’t be surprised if you look outside and see snow flurries or perhaps your car frozen in a solid block of ice with a defiant Quaid standing on top planting a Texas flag in the roof because it’s going to get damn chilly. Oh, sure, the “forecast” is calling for lows in the low 40s Saturday and Sunday morning and highs in the mid to upper 60s both days, but since when do we trust “science?” What is this, the Dark Ages?
I don’t want to lie to you guys. I’m scared. I haven’t worn a cardigan in a very long time and no one wants to see that. But I swear on the life of Dennis Quaid in a beast fur jumpsuit that we will make it through this. Even if the Night King rides a zombie dragon down I-10 slicing skyscrapers in half with frozen demon fire, we will survive.
So, light a fire, burn some library books for warmth and, for the love of God, keep Emmy Rossum’s antibiotics well stocked. Because, my fellow Houstonians, it is once again time to hunker down. Vaya con dios.
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2017.
