I'm sure this etymology has been widely broadcast, or perhaps you already knew that the name "Irene" comes from that of a Greek goddess. Irene was the goddess of peace, and there's an adjective, irenic—"promoting peace; peaceful; pacific," as my dictionary defines it—correlated to the name. Or maybe vice versa.
Plenty of commentators must have noted that it was irenic ironic that a destructive force majeure would bear such a name. Irene battered North Carolina yesterday, causing several deaths, copious floods and damage, and widespread power outages. Weather remains one of the only hazards human beings have not yet learned to control or ward off. There is nothing you can do but absorb the damage, lament the losses, and then recover.
Sportsfans, read the rest of this story, and all of our expanded and improved Durham Bulls coverage, on the new Bull City Summer pilot site, where Sam Stephenson has all the details on how groundskeeper Scott Strickland readied the DBAP for Hurricane Irene, enabling the Bulls and Knights to play just hours after the storm left the Triangle:
