The good news is that Hurricane Flossie fizzled. There is no bad news. A massive weather mass that threatened the Hawaiian Islands for a week as it churned through the Pacific Ocean as a category 3 hurricane is now a disorganized tropical storm breaking up to the south and west of the islands.

Watching local TV news reports, there was disappointment in the voices of young reporters who’ve never sunk their teeth into a real weather story in a place where the sun shines all the time. When an anchor asked her reporter on the scene “what’s new”” he said, “Not much, we’re just chasing the story that got away.”

Surfers were disappointed that predicted 15 to 20-foot waves never materialized, and they had to hang 10 in water “only” 10 feet high.

“Bummer,” said the kids as they boarded the bus for what they’d hoped would be a day off from school, but wasn’t.

Firefighters battling brush fires in a drought season were disappointed that the heavens didn’t open up with predicted 10 to 15-inches of rain to help extinguish the stubborn blazes.

The rest of us are thrilled. We’re shoving the furniture back onto the porch, taking down plywood we’d nailed over the big sliding doors, and pulling the plug on the bathtub’s emergency water supply. When we opened the closet door to let the cat out, she bolted so fast for freedom she forgot to eat her Kibble.

The dog, older and wiser, did not make that mistake.

Wal-Mart made a killing in battery, bottled water and toilet paper sales, and everybody’s gas tank is topped off. Loose boards, stray plastic buckets, and useless junk that could have become airborne missiles in hurricane-force winds are gone from now-tidy yards.

Best of all, when Flossie fell apart, so did its threat to life and property. Emergency services stood down, insurance rates stayed the same, and all of us who’d been united in threat were released from fear, free now to scatter back into our own lives.

Until the next tropical storm takes aim at us.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, two tropical storms are churning their way toward the U.S. mainland, where folks just like us will start paying more attention to their weather reports, check their hurricane insurance policies for coverage, and start looking around their yards for debris. Good luck to them.

Goodbye, Flossie. Good riddance.

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