My radio alarm clicked on this morning with the news that Hurricane Frances is heading toward Florida's east coast. It should make landfall by Saturday night. Great news to awaken to. While I do not live on the east coast, I do live in Florida. I can not read the paper, turn on the news, or listen to the radio without hearing about the devastation that Hurricane Charley did three weeks ago to Florida's Port Charlotte region.
Hurricane Charley was suppose to hit my region. He was barreling straight for us and the officials were predicting how many billions of dollars in damage Charley would cause all of us. We had mandatory evacuations. Grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, and department stores ran out of water, batteries, and canned goods. People waited in line for more than two hours to purchase ply wood to board up windows and doors in their homes. Gas stations had lines out into the streets. School was cancelled and people were told to leave work and go home. We were waiting for Charley and we were prepared.
But Charley decided to bypass our area and turned east instead. It hit Sanibel Island and Punta Gorda before continuing to Orlando. It was then that we realized we really were not prepared for a Category 4 hurricane. Punta Gorda is unrecognizable. Entire mobile home parks are gone, crushed and smashed into the ground. Residential neighborhoods are demolished. Roofs, power lines, signs, and traffic signals lay strewn across roads. Palm trees are bent into pretzel shapes. Tree branches, glass, metal, wires, insulation, and personal belongs are up and down the yards and in the streets. Charley raced through that area with 145 mile an hour winds and it didn't matter that the windows were boarded because Charley took the roof. The rain and the wind took everything else. There is no electricity. Many people lost their lives. Many more have ruined lives. What Charley did and what he left behind is horrific.
Emergency officials from all over the state, the National Guard, the American Red Cross, etc. have been called in to help. People are living in the streets or in makeshift tents, or in what remains of their homes. Some sleep with guns to ward off looters. There is a curfew and police patrol the streets shining search lights on anything that moves. The temperatures are in the high 90's with no electricity to run air conditioners. Unbearable for most, deadly for the elderly. Kids aren't in schools because there aren't enough schools left to house everyone. Most businesses are damaged and closed. It is just unimaginable.
In our area we breath. We are relieved, but then we feel guilty. We have organized drives to haul water, diapers, clothes, and food to our neighbors. Trucks carry building supplies, tools and generators to Punta Gorda daily. Local officials are frantic to study what went wrong so that they are prepared for the next one. We are all wondering how to be prepared for the next one.
From June to November it is hurricane season for those of us living along the coast. For all of us, this hurricane has given the season a new meaning. Preparation will be key. Denial will not. Three months before the threat ends. Only a few days before Frances strikes.
September 5, 2004 - Rain, Rain Go Away
The thing about Charley was he was fast. He blew in and he blew out. Frances is acting just like a woman and taking her sweet time in crossing our state. She is huge, bigger than the state of Texas, and her bands are covering the entire state of Florida. We get each band as she passes over our area. The winds aren't too bad, about 50 mph with lots of rain. We lost our power at 1:00 a.m. So far we haven't noticed much of a difference. Our house is still cool and we have our water. We have built puzzles, played games, read books, and finished homework. We still have one ancient phone (the kind with a cord) in our garage so we are still connected to the outside world. Even my five year old is receiving calls now from her bored school chums. She sits in the wicker chair stored in our garage chatting away on the phone like I use to do as a teenager.
Our huge oak tree in the front yard is blowing fiercely. Our yard is covered with so many limbs and leaves we can't see the grass. We have lost several large limbs, one that cracked so loudly, I was sure it was a blown transformer. Thankfully, not one has landed on our roof.
We are not boarded up so we are able to look outside at the activity. It is gray, gloomy, and rainy. Almost a typical day in Florida, save for the wind and the fact that the rain isn't stopping. There is no sun. We are told it will be this way tomorrow as well since Frances is so large. We sit and wait.
September 6, 2004 - Relief, Food and Heroics
Happy Labor Day! Frances disappeared about 2:45 p.m. One by one all of our neighbors came outside and breathed the fresh air. We had a great breeze and we stood in the street taking stock of the damage. Our yard had the most damage from our oak tree so our neighbors gathered rakes, chain saws, shovels, and gloves and we raked, cut, and bagged limbs, debris and leaves. By the time everything was finished, we had a pile of bags taller than myself and wider than Tom stretched out on his back. I was touched by the help we received. Floridians are not usually neighborly as people come and go, spending only half their time here. That was a hard adjustment for me being from the Midwest where everyone knows their neighbors and everyone helps one another. My neighborhood is the exception which is why I love it here, but today really reminded me of my neighbors back home.
We have no power. Our neighbors across the street have power. Two doors down on our side of the street a tree fell on the power lines. More than two million customers are without power in our area. So far it hasn't been a hindrance. My neighbor across the street announced she was having us all over for dinner at six. We had a total of 9 adults and 2 children at her house eating chili, bread, cake and wine. We gathered around the television and got our fix. We laughed and told stories or our weathering of the storm. For awhile we forgot about everything we still had to face....Hurricane Ivan is now approaching.
September 7, 2004 - Could Somebody PLEASE Make Some Noise?
I never knew how much noise is actually in my life. I'm talking about the constant day to day background noises that I never really thought about before. I think about it now. I am still without electricity. Last night was hard. We left our neighbors full of wine and good food to return home to darkness, stillness, dankness which has become a part of our daily lives. We opened our front door and stood in the entrance way with our flashlights. We looked at each other, and then closed our door, got into our car and drove to Target to wander the aisles enjoying the air conditioning with all of the other weary survivors. If I thought I could have gotten away with hiding in the bathroom for the night, I would have.
We went home and got ready for bed. There isn't much to do in a house in the dark except sleep. Our house is hot now. We can't open windows because the humidity will cause mold and wetness. I have a child with breathing problems so she is better in the closed house. The air in here is stale. I long for fresh air. The darkness is crazy. I never realized how dark night really is. Pitch black. I love the dark usually, but there is always something glowing in the background when I wander my house in the night; clocks, nightlights, back up battery packs attached to our electronics. Now there is non of that, and I stumble quite a bit over furniture that has been in the same spot for years.
The silence is incredible. There is nothing. I wake in the night and lie there, my ears straining for some noise, some peep. Nothing. My ears buzz from the lack of noise. No clickety clack of the ceiling fan. No hum of the air conditioning kicking on and off. I miss the murmur of the filter in the fish tank. Never again will I take noise for granted. I ache for morning, for the chirping of the birds and for some light.
September 8, 2004 - Oh, How Nice To Be Free
Our electricity has been restored! I slept last night in air conditioning in a clean bed with clean sheets that smelled of Tide and not body sweat. The day is glorious! We have sunshine and heat. I got to go outside and actually drive around today. School was back in session. I taught swimming lessons and ran errands to replenish our empty refrigerator. I cleaned like a fiend, amazed at how dusty my house was just being closed up for days. I kept going outside to just look around at everything just because I could. If I every groaned about routine, I apologize. How wonderful it is to be back on track.
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