Floridians obsess on Rita coverage

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — At bars, colleges eateries and nursing homes, television sets in Palm Beach County tuned into the Weather Channel as Hurricane Rita and its Category 4 catastrophic winds pin-wheeled toward the Gulf Coast of the United States.

After watching Florida besieged by four major hurricanes last season, residents said they felt an affinity for folks in Louisiana who are possibly about to be hit with the second giant cyclone in a month.

"You feel their pain, and you feel their anguish," said Cindy Y. Palmero, executive director of Darcy Hall of Life Care, a skilled-nursing and rehab center on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. "And you feel helpless because there's nothing you can do."

Debra Burr, who lives at Darcy Hall, said she can hear the Weather Channel on in almost every room. "I hear everybody watching the hurricane. They want to know where it is going to hit, if the same people are going to get hit again."

So is all this obsessing good for South Floridians, putting life on hold, glued to the television set, mesmerized by the red and yellow computer-enhanced clouds of Rita in the Gulf of Mexico? Probably not, said Charles R. Figley, a professor with the Traumatology Institute at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

Figley said South Floridians, understandably, have a fascination with watching others and how they behave under the circumstances they faced last summer. But the 24-hour news cycle can only exacerbate uneasiness and trigger other personal problems, such as substance abuse. "You start to develop a kind of anxiety when flooded with this type of information," Figley said.

For those who went through Frances, Jeanne, Charley or Ivan last summer, every hurricane can conjur panic.

"I guess in Jacksonville, residents are responding quite differently than South Florida residents because they have not been through a direct hit," Figley said.

Figley said humor can help release anxiety. "It's a way of coping with the challenge brought on by remembering we are living in a hurricane zone," he said.

Such humor can be found late at night on the talk shows. John Stewart of "The Daily Show " joked Wednesday night that Rita had become a Category 12 hurricane and turned into black hole. He dead-panned: "and as we are being sucked into the anti-matter, environmentalists will say, 'I told you this was going to happen.'"

But for many on Thursday in South Florida, Rita was no laughing matter.

At St. Rita's Catholic Church in Wellington, some parishioners lighted candles at an outside grotto and prayed for those in the hurricane's path. They weren't too keen on talking about how their church's namesake is also the moniker for a potential killer hurricane.

Some bars turned their television sets from ESPN to the Weather Channel. "I think everyone is a little scared that New Orleans will get hit again," said Angie Skivington, a bartender at City Cellar restaurant.

Students congregated around the television set to watch the noon news at The Common Ground Cafe on the Palm Beach Atlantic University campus. "Oh my God," said Paula Orezi, a senior, when she saw the projected path of the hurricane cutting into Texas and Louisiana.

Holly Johnson, also a senior said, "I think it's been the topic of conversation for every one. ... If the U.S. is hit again, how are we going to handle it? Our troops are all over the place."

John Pacenti writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: john_pacenti@pbpost.com