Baby Earl was born about 10 days ago, on the west coast of tropical Africa. At that stage, meteorologists called him disturbed, but not yet necessarily dangerous. They watched him closely, though, as he left that continent behind and began moving out across the Atlantic.

His first mention on the National Weather Service Hurricane Advisory Archive was on the morning of Wednesday last week, although he did not at that stage have a name.

Hurricane Earl was a bust for bird watchers. A cast of thousands, all the Vineyard’s most active bird watchers, met at the Gay Head Cliffs on Saturday, Sept. 4 with high hopes. Although the winds were not much more than a northeaster, we were hopeful that some unusual bird species may have been carried to our Island from afar. No such luck. There were more bird watchers than birds.

The Vineyard was in a state of emergency and high alert at nightfall yesterday as Hurricane Earl crawled up the Eastern Seaboard, a category three storm packing winds up to 111 miles per hour with drenching rains, its huge eye pointed straight at eastern Cape Cod, the Vineyard and Nantucket.

Southern New England is overdue for a major hurricane. The last big one, in terms of lives lost, damage and cost, was the Great Hurricane of 1938. A lot has changed since then that will make the next one even more severe.