FOR SEVERAL days, Florida weather reports have been tracking Hurricane Ida. It ripped through the unprotected islands in the Caribbean Sea, where lives were lost. It kept its lethal path of destruction northbound toward the Gulf of Mexico and the southern coast. In a hurricane, this Yankee is a real chicken.

There was a lot of preparation here on the morning of October 9. The St. Marks Refuge Manager visited us in our RV

motorhome) at the Work Center site where we live for six months while we volunteer. "My advice is to at least get out from under the trees. Use the parking lot for the RV. You can camp in the Fire Crew Headquarters overnight - there are cots in there. It's the safest building we have."

See, the trouble with this southern weather is, nothing's simple. First of all, in the south, hurricanes have names. Their own personal identity. And most are named after a woman, whatever that means. Second, you don't just get a hurricane for a couple of days. You get its progeny, nasty little tornado offspring that pick up the twisty winds and wipe your house off the map.

I think of the pile of toothpicks remaining from our RV if a tornado twisted through. We consider evacuation. But that feels like an embarrassing retreat. We pack up our stuff and move the RV to the heavy equipment parking lot at the Work Center. No trees. Now all we have to worry about are flying boats on trailers, and a few wind-driven, 5 ton bucket loaders wheeling along at 60 mph.

A major snow storm might be a comparable weather event in Vermont. There's similar giddy energy in every conversation. There's probably even a run on flashlights, battery-operated heaters, gas stoves and soup. And chocolate. But no one actually names our snowstorms, at least not in public.

Weather stations track the storm, snowfall predictions change by the hour. School closings begin to roll in, businesses close early. When the snow begins to fly, major travel routes fill up, and traffic rolls along at first, then creeps, as one car after another slides gracefully into a snow bank.

In both the blizzard and the hurricane, most households probably lose power. Bring on the breakfast bars. But the feeling in these two weather calamities is very different. Vermont snow storms always left me feeling like there's an adventure coming. Preparation was important, but snow never felt lifethreatening. Stay home, catch up, take a nap, watch the drifting, flop in it, keep up with the shoveling, and so on.

Hurricanes, on the other hand, bring a sense of fear and a promise of destruction. Hurricane Ida was down-graded when it hit the cooler Gulf waters, and changed to a Category I, then down-graded again later to a Tropical Storm. There is some sense of relief, but still too many variables for my liking.

Although the other volunteer RVers were fully ready to move, none did. We sat alone and conspicuous in this 5 acre parking lot with our Vermont license plates shining through the night. The long hours passed uneventfully: although we are close to 10 miles from the Gulf, we could hear a constant white noise of wind and wave, and occasional strong gusts rocked us. Some bluster, some rain, but we felt safe enough.

Today, October 10, schools are open. We will drive one hour from here in the rain and wind to teach 110 elementary and middle school children about the Monarch butterfly life cycle, including migration. Wonder how those butterflies are doing, en route across the Gulf? Not so well, I expect. But that's part of the story. The best news is, this hurricane did not take lives here, or destroy property. It will continue to spin around this coastal area for several hours, dumping torrents of rain and making a general mess of things before it fades into weather history.

Hurricane Ida is called a 'lateseason' storm. We try to avoid southern weather extremes by coming here late in the fall, and leaving in the spring before they get cranked up again. By contrast, as inconvenient as they sometimes are, Vermont snow storms are mostly gentle and beautifully poetic, as in Robert Frost's beloved "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.