Frances, Gaston, Hermine, Ivan...

The East coast of America, and Florida in particular, seems to get a lot of hurricanes. (We hear more about the storms that hit Florida than all the others partly because they're of greater severity than the others and partly because Florida is populated entirely by tiny dried-up husks of old people who weigh so little that they often get sucked up into the slipstreams of trucks and end up miles from home, so hundred-mile-an-hour winds are more of a problem for them than for the rest of us.)

It doesn't happen in England, or at least, not often. We certainly don't have to give them names to tell one from the other. When we talk about "The Hurricane", we mean the one we had back in 1987, which peaked at a relatively puny 94 miles per hour. At the time I was living in a part of rural Cambridgeshire where there were three houses, five trees and nothing else from one horizon to the other except fields full of brussel sprouts, so the storm damage was limited. (They can withstand a lot of damage, can sprouts, which is good, because it means that after World War Three the cockroaches will still have something to eat.) Anyway, back to hurricanes; if we're up to "Ivan" already that means there have been nine hurricanes this year already, and it's only September.

Bearing that in mind, what I don't understand is this: why do Floridians continue to build ordinary houses? There would seem to be only two sensible approaches:

1 - Dig a large hole. Turn it into a spacious and well-equipped cellar. Live in it. If you feel the need to live above ground during the summer months, make sure that the dwelling you construct is made out of the cheapest, flimsiest materials available, then when it blows away while you're hiding in the cellar, not only won't you care, but if it lands on somebody it won't squash them. Part of the roof of the cellar (or floor of the house, depending on whether you're up or down) would of course be a sort of electric trapdoor thing to allow you to quickly move televisions, stereo systems and stuff up and down as required.

2 - Rather than build a normal house, build a windowless (CCTV cameras could take the place of windows) reinforced concrete pyramid, with walls at least two metres thick and deep foundations. No hurricane's going to move that motherfucker. The pyramid concept could prove immensely popular in Florida, with most of the population looking like a triumph of the embalmer's art already. On the death of the occupant, no need for a costly funeral, merely seal the doors and walk away.

You know it makes sense.

NB: "The Flimsy", and "The Cheops" are registered trademarks of The Bugbear Construction Company Ltd.