1. It’s Monday, September 11, 2017.

Still can’t write that date without thinking about that day.

2. As always, my thoughts are with the people who lost loved ones that day 16 years ago.

I don’t know how they’ve made it through to 2017, but I hope their strength is forged from the admiration anyone with a heart has for them – especially today.

3. Of course, September 10 now appears to be a quite awful date in history – especially if you are or know someone who is a Floridian.

It’s going to take some time for folks to assess the damage done by Irma. Here’s to hoping that people heeded all the warnings, and that keeps down the casualty count.

The damage from the wind and the water is certainly going to be huge. But it can be fixed. Lives can’t.

4. By the way, let’s hear it for the good people of Puerto Rico.

The island didn’t get as clobbered as feared from the storm. But its neighbors to the east – the U.S. and British Virgin Islands – suffered the impact of 185-mile-an-hour winds. The devastation in some areas is said to be total.

So Puerto Ricans are doing what decent people everywhere do. They’re offering a helping hand. Coming up with supplies and evacuating those left homeless.

The conduct of these folks are what makes America great.

5. By the way, do you remember Hurricane Jose?

That was the storm that was right behind Irma in the Caribbean.

Actually, it still is the storm right behind Irma in the Caribbean.

According to the National Weather Service, Jose is going in a loop-de-loop. After a slight turn north, it will get right back on the course it was on.

And while it’s too early to tell, that course is headed for the east coast of Florida.

Jose is not, at this point, as big a storm as Irma. Winds top out at 110 miles an hour – not the 185 of Irma.

But right now, Florida doesn’t look like it could use any more water or wind. And a second storm will further tax a stretched-to-the-limit first responder system.

So let’s keep a wary eye on Jose, and hope it enjoys circling so much that it keeps doing it until it tires itself out.

6. So why is this post self-explanatory?

Irma is the second Category 4 hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in a month. Jose might be coming.

These storms are monsters. And while hurricanes are no new phenomenon, the consistent power of them are.

That, my friends, is climate change.

There are those who keep trying to deny this. Who say this isn’t the time to raise this issue.

Baloney. This IS the time to raise it. Because it’s not going to get any better. This area is still trying to recover from Sandy, a storm that hit five years ago.

How long will it take Texas to recover from Harvey, or Florida from Irma? And if storms are getting stronger, what dangers await the Atlantic coast and the Gulf States?

Only idiots deny climate change. The same idiots who thought Irma and Harvey were overblown threats.

Heed them at your peril.