Did Goths Save Miami From a Category 5 Hurricane?

Yesterday Irma was a Category 5 hurricane. However, after a goth dance, she is today a Category 4 and veering away from Miami.

By Jonathan Kendall

September 9, 2017

Screenshot From "Friday I'm a Goth"

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Yesterday, Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 storm with her deadly gaze on Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. However, a few local goths weren't having it. Nope. Crystal Jerdak and Dairo Eduardo Urrea took to Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier and, to the astonishment of some lucky passersby, engaged in an ancient goth ritual dance.

The purpose? To "scare away" the hurricane.

Goth dancing to blow hurricane Irma away
Posted by Crystal Jerdak on Friday, September 8, 2017

Although their dance on the beach was mainly done to appease Facebook friends, the force runs strong with these two, evidently. Today, despite what all the forecasts predicted, Irma's track has veered west. The result? The eye wall of the hurricane is no longer expected to make landfall on Florida's east coast.

Is this just a coincidence? Perhaps. But considering how even experts get it wrong in terms of the weather, who's to say Jerdak and Urrea's killer freestyle dance moves didn't somehow — perhaps through the Butterfly Effect — deter the hurricane? If that's the case, these goths are protectors of the Sunshine State!

In a world where there are currently three hurricanes swirling about and Donald Trump is president, strange things are obviously possible.

"All of the positive feedback from this silly event I made really warms my heart," Jerdak tells New Times. "Though we should all take this hurricane very seriously, we should still be able to make light of this dark situation in some way."

Jonathan Kendall is a former editor at Big Think. He studied journalism at Harvard and is a contributing writer for Miami New Times as well as for Vogue, Cultured, Los Angeles Review of Books, Smithsonian, and Atlas Obscura.

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