In 2017 Central Florida experienced something surprisingly rare.
A big BIG hurricane.
It wasn’t just any hurricane. It was Irma, one of the deadliest hurricanes of all time. It blossomed into a Category 5 where it crossed Barbuda, Saint Barthelmy, St Martin, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands. Barbuda was decimated with 95% of the buildings and infrastructure leveled. Very few islands escaped Irma. It continued to St Maarten, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico before aiming at Florida.
I’ve been a Floridian since 1962, and have ridden through many hurricanes. Mostly brushes with the bad stuff. Thankfully nothing major, a direct hit. Before Irma, we were fortunate.
Our luck was about to change.
Some tried to outrun her. Heading north, several didn't get very far. Or it took them forever to break through the grid of desperation to find somewhere to ride it out. Eventually hotels, gas stations, restaurants…anything open to anyone was boarded up and doors locked. If you weren’t hunkered down somewhere indoors, you rode out the storm in your car.
Most of us stayed at home. What do you do when a monster approaches?
You hold on and do the best you can to stay alive.
We were expecting the worst of the storm to happen overnight which was pretty frightening.
It’s one thing to look into the eye of a storm, but another to have it rain calamity all around you and you’re unable to see it.
I walked around our little townhouse before dark, visiting each quiet room, committing them to memory and praying that the house would look the same in the morning.
Mom came over and was in the guest room upstairs, along with Hubs and the kitties in our room. I tried to stay awake downstairs just in case something blew open or fell in. There wasn't much chance of sleeping. The wind roared with one freight train after another, while branches and other debris were hitting the building.
The electricity went out about 10 pm and stayed off for six days.
The following morning, Irma was gone and the sun was shining.A clear, bright day without a cloud in the sky.
Hubs cranked over our old-fashioned stove top coffee pot using a Coleman gas stove, and was making eggs. Like any other morning. Breakfast smells. I can't begin to tell you how that comforted me.
Then Mom came downstairs, mad as a wet hen.
“I’m never going through another one of these again. Anyone that lives in this state is stupid stupid stupid! Do you hear me?”
I’d had about zero hours sleep and was in no mood.
We'd made it through alive and our wood frame home held up. The inside of our house looked as it did when the sun went down the night before. An answer to prayer.
I quietly answered her.
“Yes, Mom, I hear you. Not today. We can discuss this another time but not today. I’m too overwhelmed by God’s grace to listen to this. Would you like some coffee?”
She didn’t.
Probably for the best. She might have hurled the cup at me.
She insisted that Hubs take her home after breakfast so they could check her place for damage. There was none. Just some leaves and some trampled bushes. The big palm tree fronds took a beating but were easily trimmed.
Our community however did have some damage. Most of our building's roofing shingles were in the courtyard, and a giant oak tree limb broke off and landed on the hood of Hubs’ Firebird. I thought he’d have a litter of puppies when he saw it. The worst thing you can do to my Hubs is mess with his wheels.
Thankfully, it was easily fixed within a month and we had good insurance.
The parking lot was a sticky mess with leaves and twigs everywhere. But blowers crooning around us soon made history of most of them.
Otherwise, it was just hot.
Beastly hot.
Irma was like a bad penny that sucked the air out of the room. Most of the area was without power and it was clear that we were in for a long haul.
As time went by, I began to notice some big changes in my neighbors, relatives and friends. No one was angry. We laughed, inbibed in the occasional adult beverage and for the first time in a long long time, life felt good. Safe.
Politics and the chaos in Washington DC weren’t even on our collective radars. Nobody talked about it, dished about it on Facebook or Twitter. Nobody CARED.
Thank God, a vacation from the madness.
Instead, the best of who we really were emerged. Like a monarch from a chrysallis.
Linemen from as far away as Canada were soon on the scene, sleeping in their trucks and working round the clock to restore power. Since there were so few places open where they could get a bite to eat, we were encouraged to share our food with them. Make some extra sandwiches, a plate of BBQ and give those guys a break. They were sleeping in their trucks, away from their homes and families and just as miserable if not more so than we were.
Facebook friends, high school friends and everyone in between talked back and forth about who had what, who had opened and had ice, which gas stations had reopened, restaurants that might have opened with limited menus. We dished about who sustained damage and trading names of contractors and handymen who might be able to help when the worst was over.
When one neighbor got ice, they got it for their closest neighbors too. No money exchanged hands.
If someone got bottled water it was the same thing.
Our dearest neighbors shared a spare outlet on their generator so we could run a big fan without batteries.
Everyone shared.
Grills throughout the neighborhood were stoked and people were feasting on their remaining freezer stuff before it thawed. Although we were sweaty messes, we sat together and ate until it was coming out of our ears.
And we finally took the time to do something we’d never done before. To converse and become friends. To visit with each other. Kids were laughing and having a ball riding bikes and running after each other outside, rather than playing solitary video games inside.
It was as though we were transported back in time when there were three channels on TV, making food at home, and having neighbors over for dinner.
The breeze never returned and for six days the heat was nearly unbearable. The cats were as miserable as I’d ever seen them.
But, in spite of it all it was good. Peaceful.
The BEST part of the week was when someone came up with the idea of throwing a thank you party for the linemen at Seminole High School. People brought food-whatever they could come up with, restaurants donated what they could spare and over a thousand stinky people gathered and wrapped their collective arms around them, appreciative for what they'd done for us. Country music was blaring and the linemen were line dancing. It was one heck of a good party.
I was so proud and hopeful. We all came together when it counted.
On day six, I was sitting on our bed upstairs reading a book when I saw the Duke Energy trucks rolling down our street.
Instead of elation that the power would finally come back on, I wished they’d go help someone else.
A short time later, we were reconnected with the madness.
Fox News, the bickering, the baffling buffoonery assaulting our collective senses from the White House. I hadn’t missed it. And I doubt that anyone else did either, no matter their party affiliation.
Strange as it seemed, I wish we could be hot again and go back to where we were for six days. A world without that irksome tether of anxiety and fear.
Compared to a constant unsettling sense of waiting for the next shoe to drop, sacrificing a fridge full of spoiled food and enduring the ever present drizzling sweat seemed a small price to pay.
We’re facing another storm in a few days. Also beginning with the letter “I.” This one is named Ian, and he carries a punch reminiscent of Irma. He may be even stronger. The jury is still out and the models are all over the place.
I’d be an idiot and a liar if I told you that I’m looking forward to going through it all over again, because when the storm hits it’s frightening as hell.
But I keep thinking about Irma. The good that emerged from what could have been catastrophic. A reminder that even in the toughest of times, God can make a rainbow.
Pray for us. Please. Send your linemen when it’s over because we’ll surely need them.
God willing, we’ll have BBQ waiting, sandwiches prepared and ready to care for them just as they always have for us.
Michelle Close Mills (c)
