Dodge a bullet: To narrowly avoid something or some situation that turns out to be disastrous, dangerous or harmful; To have a narrow escape 躲過一劫,逃過一劫

Example:

A: I heard John has become a drug addict and is living out of his car now.

B: Gee, I broke up with him years ago. Looks like I dodged a bullet on that one.

(CNBC, 2017/9/11)

Tampa “dodged a bullet”, Miami Beach “dodged a cannonball”: mayors

 The mayors of Tampa and Miami Beach, two Florida cities that were at one point projected to take a direct hit from category 5 Hurricane Irma, said their communities were mostly spared.

“I say we didn’t dodge a bullet, we dodged a cannonball,” Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine told CNBC on Monday. “This was a nuclear hurricane coming our way.”

Updated projections over the weekend put Tampa, Florida, squarely in Irma’s path. Mayor Bob Buckhorn told CNBC the city was “staring into the abyss.”

Irma pounded Naples and Marco Island before heading to Tampa. When Irma finally arrived, it shifted to the east. Buckhorn said he “realized that the gods were smiling” on the city when dawn broke.

“This is a city that, for whatever reason, dodged a bullet,” Buckhorn said.

佛羅里達州Tampa 和Miami Beach這兩個原本以為會遭到五級颶風厄瑪直接侵襲的城市,市長都說他們僥倖逃過。Miami Beach 市長Levine對電視記者說:[我們不僅躲過子彈,我們是躲過了大砲。這個核彈颶風本來是衝著我們來的。]

此外氣象局新的預測也是說Tampa會剛好強碰厄瑪,市長Buckhorn甚至告訴記者: [整個城市正面臨深淵。] 但當它真正抵達之前卻轉向往東,市長說天亮時他才領悟老天爺對他們網開一面。他說不管原因是什麼,他的城市逃過一劫。

(LA Times, 2014/3/10)

After a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck off the coast of Northern California, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Lt. Steve Knight said Monday the region “dodged a bullet.”

“We had some alarms go off and other than that we dodged a bullet,” Knight said. “This easily could have been a catastrophe that could have caused a lot of damage,” he told the Times Standard.

北加州的外海遭到規模六點九地震侵襲,Humboldt郡的奈特警長說他的地區[逃過一劫]。他告訴洛杉磯時報說:[除了有幾個地方響起警報之外,我們躲過一劫。本來很可能造成天翻地覆的大災難的,(結果沒有)。]

Sound (中文講解): ICRT podcast

Photos: diply, USAToday