Within a mile radius of my retrofitted-for-storms home, several of my neighbors seem to have surrendered to the elements, replacing the iconic white flag with something more tropical: storm shutters. Quite a few houses have all or some shutters up, surely a sign that our collective memory, at least when it comes to weather, runs deep and long.

This strikes me as strange, considering that the last threat we faced, just a few weeks back, was a puny Tropical Storm Ernesto. Yet, as I wend my way past the expanse of suburban lawns and basketball hoops, I feel as if we've joined the chorus in a Greek tragedy and that, on cue, we're clanging our shutters together in some post-modern chant.

So far, 2006 has birthed eight named storms, with only four growing up to become hurricanes. Not one has signed on our dance card, most choosing instead to curve into the North Atlantic and sure oblivion.

But it's not just hurricanes that keep us as anxious as a patient awaiting a root canal. All things Mother Nature -- tornadoes, blizzards, volcanoes, flood -- keep us on edge, and this at a time in history when most of us enjoy the safety of certain shelter.

Thanks to satellites and 24-hour news, weather has become our new boogeyman (as if we needed one). Breathless broadcasters deliver atmospheric minutiae that, I suspect, may inure us to The Real Thing, and even a thunderstorm -- a daily occurrence hereabouts -- elicits an interruption in programming and enough whiz-bang special effects on the small screen to rival the first Star Wars.

Unlike other threats such as Iran, Osama bin Laden and oil companies, we can't prosecute or threaten. We can only protect ourselves. Let a warning pop off somewhere, no matter how minor, and we become addicted to frequent updates about the plodding movement of what once would have been simply considered a bothersome weather system.

The irony of it: In the Internet era, in the era of 9/11 and liquid explosives, Mother Nature has elbowed her way into our nightmares. ''Terrorism,'' Peter Levene, chairman of Lloyd's of London told the press, ''is a risk that is being taken care of in large part by governments right now, as it should be.'' The real issue, he added, is natural disasters. And he said that, by the way, in April 2004, before the back-to-back seasons of too many hurricane landfalls.

Katrina didn't help assuage our qualms, of course, but endless live reports, Doppler effects and cones of probability -- for all their usefulness -- have ratcheted our primitive fears up a notch or two. I don't mean for this to be a criticism of useful weather forecasts. Better safe than sorry is a maxim in my book. And true, weather affects everything, from our insurance rates to the clothes we wear and the money we shell out for gasoline.

Nonetheless, every weather event is not worthy of prime-time; every disturbance off the coast of Africa does not merit top-of-the-hour coverage with eerie music and ominous graphics. This may make for good ratings, but it also keeps us in a state of perpetual worry, unable to distinguish between the real and the hype.

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