My friend Marcia McClure was living in Buffalo during the Blizzard of 1977, and remembers the sound of the wind howling off Lake Erie for days. That was what got to her. Not the 30-foot snowdrifts that trapped everyone indoors. Not the bitter cold. Not the groceries running low, or the fear that the power would fail and they’d freeze in the dark. The wind. The incessant, howling wind. I thought of Marcia when the dogs woke me up at dark-thirty this morning with their whining. There was that wind . . . but this isn’t Buffalo, and the distance across Lake Michigan is a lot less than the distance across the whole length of Lake Erie, and we’re going to be fine. Still, I don’t blame the dogs for whining. I guess I’m doing a little whining too.
Torch Lake Views 
Katherine
December 15, 2008
One of my friends lives in the Keys in Florida and went through hurricane Andrew in her house in the Keys. She said that the lack of water or electricity didn’t get to her, but that the wind howling, hour after hour, almost drove her crazy.
Katy
December 17, 2008
Someone once told me that the early settlers in Northern Michigan went mad from the wind in the pines. Double the intensity and timbre of that recent night on my hill at Bay View Farm. One night of howling under my warm down comforter was music. By the second night, madness seemed possible.
Gerry
December 17, 2008
I remember a night of camping in a stand of popple over near Mio. It was early spring, and the trees were bare. The racket they made as they clattered together in the wind was simply amazing.