You call that a hurricane?

Well, the dud that was Henri a few weeks ago doesn’t mark the first time — nor certainly the last — that we all will have prepared for a meteorological onslaught, only to have it take an unexpected last-minute turn and not live up to its dire expectations.

It seems rare that when weather forecasts brace us for 18 inches of snow, we instead get two inches or even only a dusting. Or when we are positioned to absorb a direct hit from a hurricane, such as Henri last month, we instead experience 40 to 50 mph winds, some horizontal rain, a few downed trees, minor flooding and — at worst — a brief loss of power.

This city is fortunate to have Norwich Public Utilities, whose thousands of customers here rarely lose power, and when they do, have it restored quickly, days and sometimes weeks sooner than customers of the larger regional utilities.

Regardless of the storm’s severity, we can always count on the nitwits to rush in, front and center, just where they want to be. Whether they’re surfing during hurricane-driven tidal surges or running shirtless through the driven snow of a blizzard, their arrival is as certain as the sun setting in the west.

“Pay attention to me,” they seem to be saying, in defiance of the warnings from meteorologists and emergency personnel. The saying “can’t fix stupid” would seem to apply in these cases.

Mind you, no one is complaining about our seeming ability to dodge weather bullets here in southeastern Connecticut. After all, when we think about Mother Nature’s immense destructive power and the devastation she can bring with tornadoes, blizzards, hurricanes, floods, landslides, earthquakes and other natural disasters, we should instead be grateful for our good fortune.

As my father would often remark when watching news coverage of such carnage on television: “There is nothing delicate about the environment.”

He was right. An elevated-category hurricane can wipe out homes, businesses, roads and bridges along a shoreline with triple-figure winds and tidal surges. A tornado can cut a swath of destruction that will sometimes level one side of a residential street and leave the other side unscathed. It lasts only a few minutes, but can leave behind enormous amounts of death and destruction. The devastation wrought by landslides, earthquakes and floods brought on by extended periods of torrential rain is unimaginable. Man-made structures are no match for nature’s wrath, and we here in southeastern Connecticut are blessed not to experience these natural outbursts very often.

That is not to say we’ve gone completely unscathed. In fact, we’ve experienced some memorable weather calamities over the years.

The worst in my memory was the Blizzard of 1978, when 1 1/2 feet of snow buried Connecticut, collapsed the roof of the Hartford Civic Center on Jan. 17 only hours after a University of Connecticut basketball game, and shut down roads and highways throughout the state.

Then-Gov. Ella Grasso declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard that January as the state remained virtually paralyzed for about a week while digging out from under the historic blizzard.

There were a few exceptions to the travel ban: healthcare providers and emergency workers — and working journalists, including me, then a 23-year old reporter for The Norwich Bulletin. I remember the eerie feeling of having Route 32 almost entirely to myself as I drove to The Bulletin’s Willimantic bureau, where I was stationed at the time.

The state Department of Transportation and local public works crews had done their best to clear the roads, but driving even after the plows had come through was treacherous at best. Downtown Norwich and Willimantic were veritable ghost towns for several days until the roads were re-opened.

The worst weather disaster of my lifetime occurred on the very day I came into the world — Aug. 31, 1954 — when Hurricane Carol blasted Long Island and southern New England with winds that reached 110 miles per hour. Now, that was a real hurricane, leaving 150,000 people in southern New England without power and telephone service.

There were no cell phones or even cordless phones in those days. Carol destroyed or damaged more than 11,000 homes in southern New England and within that hard-hit area, also destroyed 3,000 cars and 3,500 boats. In all, 65 lost their lives while 1,000 were injured.

It was the costliest hurricane to that point in history, causing damage that was estimated at $462 million in 1954 dollars, a figure that would be well into the billions in today’s currency.

My parents recalled that power was lost at The William W. Backus Hospital while I was being born. At least two other babies were born at Backus the same day, Ken Armstrong Jr., my best friend as a child, and another classmate, Susan Hiscox. I am not sure which of us was born first, but the hospital staff nicknamed me “Windy Willie.”

At this writing, our fellow Americans along the Gulf of Mexico coast were being battered by Hurricane Ida, 16 years almost to the day after another fierce hurricane, Katrina, ravaged New Orleans and the surrounding region, killing 1,800 people and causing billions in property damage.

And, of course, no story about natural disasters would be complete without acknowledging The New England Hurricane of 1938, which struck the Northeast without warning, killing about 600 people, injuring an additional 700, and causing damage that would have totaled more than $5 billion today.

These are just a few of the reminders of how blessed we are, having avoided most of the worst of Mother Nature’s wrath. Here’s hoping it stays that way here in calm and quiet southeastern Connecticut.

Bill Stanley, a former vice president at L+M Hospital, grew up in Norwich.