On Being in a Hurricane

Common foes create camaraderie. Be they cold-blooded Nazis, malevolent Martians, microbic plagues, or as we are confronted in Florida, a horrific “act of God” hurricane, the victory is to be found in teamwork: sharing, caring and co-operative effort.

True, there was word of heated confrontations at the gas pump, understandable with MILES long lines to the few stations open, but these are few and way overblown. Anybody who has been through turmoil learns pretty quickly that the best way to insure everybody’s highest welfare is to cooperate and help one another, “share one another’s burdens” as the biblical phrase goes.

Last Monday at noon, just after the worst of the hurricane, I admit to a teensy crack in my faith. Like everybody else, I had little water, no power, but with an added dimension of having a brother in the hospital. Luckily I trusted instincts and had gone to Publix* on Sunday, anticipating a mild Cat 1 cane, truly not expecting to need the few provisions I did buy: some water, some fruit, some canned soup, crackers, etc., all to my exacting health standards (no hydrogenated or canola oils, no artificial anything, low sodium, no meat).

Yet the Cat 3 that materialized was far worse than anyone expected. Please don’t be fooled, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Katrina in New Orleans. Floridians still had their homes well intact, there was no flooding and the infrastructure is sound, albeit in need of widespread repairs. But when total power restoration is a month out, potable water is similarly non-existent, and property damage is unprecedented it’s pretty darn bad. The worst in 50 years they say.

THE HURRICANE

Here is what a Cat 3 hurricane sounds like from within a standard Fairfield Inn* outside entrance room. Around 10 pm (8 hours before the cane actually hits) the winds start howling, just like the worst windstorm you have ever heard; you know, when the wind blows long and strong and pulls at the door and sucks the air out of the room leaving you with a little heart palpitation and heightening your nerves only you know it’s just a rare strong wind that will soon subside.

But these winds only get louder and stronger and more consistent so that there is NO BREAK, none.

Every channel was tracking Wilma’s path from the Keys across the state and warned “Do NOT expect Wilma to weaken, it is moving too fast and will be just as strong as when it hit the gulf coast.” Thus, we have the extraordinary phenomena of a hurricane’s devastation as it was leaving the coast.

The power goes out around 2:00 am as the winds kept getting incredibly, impossibly, louder and stronger! They keep escalating in sound to a tone that keeps getting louder and louder, like an operatic diva on steroids.

Wilma hits full force around 6 am. It was as if a jet engine was right outside my door…but louder. With my mind still full of the record devastation of the last year’s many hurricanes I admit to being more than a little scared at first, but after a while I just had to open my door a few times to see this dude. I’d brace myself and crack the door every so often.

Unreal! Stiff, huge, thick palms bending, all kinds of stuff blowing completely horizontally for hours! Then the eye passed and the back end of the cane blows just as fiercely in the opposite direction.

By noon the worst had passed and it was time to venture out. I felt a little like Tom Cruise emerging from his basement after the alien invasion in War of the Worlds. Good lord, the stuff—all kinds of it—EVERYWHERE. Huge, hundred year old trees uprooted. Big utility poles, traffic lights, signs, roof remnants, signs covered the town. US 1 was barely passable, but I made it, every so slowly to the hospital, which was on generator power for the whole week.

THE AFTERMATH

Not knowing if or where you might get food, water or power is discomforting. For a self-professed believer in God who is called to FAITH regardless of circumstances it is a realization that I have a long way to go. Yet it was a major blessing that Publix* (also on generator power) opened on Tuesday.

Each day I’d leave the hospital and it was totally dark, not a light anywhere in the moonless night. It is amazing how importantly street lights are, one of the thousand things I took for granted before I temporarily lost them.

Then, Thursday night the power is back on in the motel (it is on the same power grid as the hospital)! Everybody was giddy with joy.

SILVER LININGS

1) As I mentioned earlier, turmoil can bring people together. In this case, you saw people totally in tune with helping one another. Forgotten were political, ideological, and philosophical differences that truly are petty matters in the larger scheme. The focus on our higher nature brings out the best in us all and makes us grateful for what we have, even though it is far less that what we had.

2) “Less Is More.” In the room, total blackness save the light from my fantastic $35 lithium-powered flashlight and the little light on the new Grundig emergency crank-powered radio from Radio Shack. Nothing to do, it was literally lights out by 9:00, the first time since 4th grade. No mind-cluttering TV, I caught up on much-needed sleep and felt terrific each morning.

*PUBLIX and The FAIRFIELD INN. They both deserve my sincere praise and admiration for serving the public so incredibly well. They were literally lifesavers for many of us. Both company’s people were just super, and despite having to weather their own difficulties, were focused on serving others. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

*And to the Holy Cross Hospital folks, from Gerald in security to Dorette on the nursing floor and everybody else as well…THANK YOU!

Rfd 10/30/05