Harvey is a Big Fat Jerk
Hurricanes don't kill people. People kill people. People with extreme weight problems and names like Katrina, Harvey, Rita, and Ike. Those guys are such blow hards. They just get all spun up over a little hot air.
At some point, every little girl and boy,, or sometimes their middle-aged parents, or weird uncles still wearing their college frat party t-shirts, want to know why hurricanes are named after their neighbors and comic book characters. It's a seminal moment in the life of every American, a coming-of-age story when we realize that there's more to the world than we had considered. Somebody names babies, or so the thinking goes, and somebody names puppies, so surely hurricanes don't emerge from the oceans already wearing Hi! My Name Is stickers. So who's doing the naming?
Maybe it's the President, or maybe the Vice-President. He's got to do something to keep himself busy, right? It can't be Congress. If it were up to them, every hurricane would be named Hurricane [Name Pending]. Perhaps it's some kind of secret cabal of anonymous evil geniuses who gather twice a year to control the weather and giggle hysterically.
Depending on your perspective, that actually might be the answer closest to the truth. Hurricane names (which start out as tropical storm names) are set by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, or UNWMO (try turning that one into a pronounceable word--go ahead, I'll wait). This group of weather and policy experts, who probably are actually completely free of evil intent, have established six years worth of tropical storm names, with a different list for every ocean area that is prone to such storms. That way, there's no need to distinguish between a Pacific Humberto and an Atlantic Humberto, because tropical storms just do not need first and last names.
Each list of names alternates between traditionally male and traditionally female names, so that if A is for Andrea one year, the next year it would need to be for Alfonso. (Those aren't actually storm names, but you get the picture. Possibly the most surprising part of this naming scheme is that the UNWMO doesn't work six years out just for convenience; every six years the list of tropical storm names gets recycled and used again. The only exception is in the case of a really monstrous storm, in which case its name is retired, just like the jersey number of a superstar athlete.
At this point, it certainly looks like Harvey is going to qualify as a name to be retired, and we are all watching the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts with concern over this weekend. Hopefully both Hurricane Harvey and any overly bloated angry dudes of the same name will be on their best behavior, going easy on the people and places of the region. Next year's H will be Helene, and we all know she's a lady and likes to be treated as such, so let's keep our fingers crossed that Harvey tidies up when he's done, puts the seat back down, and leaves things nice for her should she materialize in 2018.
