If you've watched the news at all this weekend, you are familiar with the mighty force of Hurricane Irma. It's hard to sympathize with climate change skeptics in a month where Houston was flooded, parts of the west coast forests are burning and now the Caribbean and Florida are suffering from hurricanes as well.
A metalhead in the eye of the storm is Trivium frontman Matt Heafy. Heafy spoke to DOMKcast and said this is the most intense hurricane of his lifetime:
"I've never done so much adult prep before for a storm. Got all the propane filled, gas filled. It's pretty crazy. Everything's starting to run out. The gas stations have no fuel, the grocery stores are cleaned out of water… yeah, the list goes on. But I think I have everything now. I think I'm good. I'm ready to hole up in the house and now I'm good."
Adding that he has "never had this bad of a hurricane come around," Heafy said that he doesn't expect he and his wife will have to evacuate during Irma.
"I'm looking at my garage right now — sandbags, non-ethanol gasoline for the generator, propane, oil for the generator, one of those cool battery instant-jumper tire-inflator things, giant plywood, tapcon screws, hammer drill," he said.
"I am the least handy person in the world, so I guess it's been good for me to have to do all this stuff," he added. "I feel like I definitely am a grownup now. I did this on my own. I'm, like, 'Wow! Cool! I pulled this off.'"
While Heafy was alive for Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the most catasrophic hurricane to hit Florida, he says he was too young to remember it:
"I was a kid and it didn't really hit our area — I was in Coral Springs at the time," he explained. "That's when I was really young, so my dad kind of took care of everything. I don't really remember what kind of stuff he did."
Heafy was posting updates all through yesterday as the hurricane was hitting his area and it looks like he made it through the storm fine:
He even managed a great meal before the worst hit:
…and the aftermath…
Trivium bassist Paolo Gregoletto was also in the area and remarked that he was safe:
https://twitter.com/TriviumPaolo/status/907192455820431360
Our best wishes to everybody in the path of the hurricane.