So far its been a doozy of a 2017 Atlantic hurricane season with two massive hurricanes, Harvey and Irma, reminding everyone of Mother Nature's ferocity and power when she puts her mind to it.  Our heartfelt condolences go out to the victims of both storms and if anyone cares to donate, here are several disaster relief nonprofits that will gladly accept your assistance.

As someone who remembers occasionally going to the beach or playing football during hurricanes when I was growing up in the Boston area, usually they had petered out and it was just a good tropical storm kicking up the waves, clearly that hasn't been the case this year in the most rugged hurricane season in over a decade. 

And unfortunately the current administration chose to rollback a policy aimed at helping "American communities and businesses become more resilient against the risks of flooding" as Harvey formed so right before it came ashore in Texas. While Congress authorized a 3 month extension of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) before it expires on 9/30/17 so homeowners are still covered and it appears the worst case scenario was avoided, that seems to be purely by luck so still some much needed reform to be done here to manage future disasters.

As we are just a little over halfway through the current hurricane season, let's hope that things significantly taper off from here on out as another storm even close to the magnitude of either Harvey or Irma hitting the US would be extremely unfortunate.  Jose is roughly a week away and at this point doesn't seem to be anywhere near as strong as Harvey and Irma, or to land in the US, but as we saw with Irma shifting at the last minute to avoid greater damage, anything is possible so there is a need to remain vigilant. 

Hurricane Jose Update (9/16/17): while currently Jose is expected to stay offshore, "from Virginia to New England" it should "bring increased winds and swells to the coastline Sunday through Tuesday".