Only one way exists to avoid unwanted weather and its related hazards, and that is to move where the unwanted weather doesn’t occur.

If it is snow a person dislikes, then move to the equator, or at least south of this area. If it is extreme heat a person dislikes, the move should be made to a place farther north.

But sometimes, no matter how hard a person tries, strange weather occurrences just can’t be avoided.

It isn’t often that snow is falling in the North Carolina mountains before Halloween, or that a hurricane makes landfall in the extreme northeastern states as Sandy did this week. But on rare occasions, such as the one that started Monday, it can happen.

I would much rather have blistering hot days, than cold, frigid temperatures. And the extreme high winds we’ve been experiencing the last couple of days had me restless at night and not able to sleep well as the wind screeched through the trees just outside my window.

The strange weather is to blame for a fatal accident in Dobson Monday night, when a tree fell in front of a vehicle causing it to wreck.

And on the coast, a three-mast sailing vessel “HMS Bounty” wrecked and at least one of its crew members was killed and the captain missing, while the 14 others were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard in terrible ocean conditions.

Despite trying to avoid bad weather conditions, all the safety precautions in the world can’t always prepare us for everything.

While I’m certain with a hurricane on the way I never would sail a ship into such high ocean conditions; there is no way to predict which tree is going to fall and when it will come down.

So as we exit this horrible high wind weather we’ve been experiencing locally, let’s keep in our thoughts those who have been victims of the horrific weather conditions as well as those who are left without power and in flooded and snowed in areas to our north and west.

Mother Nature sure threw a twist in our fall season this year.

Wendy Byerly Wood is the associate editor of The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at wbyerly-wood@heartlandpublications.com or at 719-1923.