(no subject)
There's a category 4 hurricane in the Caribbean. You know what that means. Time to donate to the Red Cross or your disaster-relief charity of choice. It would really mean a lot to me.
I experienced Hurricane Andrew back in 1992.
It came as a surprise. It was the first hurricane of the season but it appeared bizarrely late. It was also the weekend my sister was visiting for her birthday, so we weren't spending a lot of time watching the news. The day before, all of us gathered on my grandmother's "porch," we finally heard what sort of monster storm was heading towards us and how close it was. By then all the wood was off the shelves in the home improvement stores, and the grocery stores cleaned out of the standard supplies. We scrambled around desperately, because by then there was little chance of the storm veering off. Andrew had a disturbingly level path towards the end as it bore down along the line of latitude leading to south Florida. We filled the bathtub with water. We parked the van in front of the garage door and the car in front of the sliding glass door, hoping the vehicles would deflect any large debris. We put all the potted plants and yard implements into the second van, partially for their protection and partially for ours, so they wouldn't become deadly projectiles.
Our house was not destroyed, but it was a long, scary night. We had been through hurricanes and tropical storms before, but never one that drove us to huddle in a hallway with a mattress over us. Afterwards we wandered into the breaking dawn, caught in that numb state that follows the adrenaline rush of terror. Glass, rain water, shingles, small branches all littered my parents' bedroom. Mine was relatively unscathed except for a snow globe that had burst in the air pressure changes and a leak mark on the ceiling-- the plywood from a neighbor's hastily constructed window fortification had imbedded itself in our roof. The yard behind us lost all their palm trees, which had nearly been large enough to reach our house. The giant old trees did crush our fence and our tangerine trees. The streets were clogged with fallen limbs or entire trees or parts of houses. There weren't enough chainsaws in the neighborhood to clear our own way out. We were essentially trapped. We could walk out, but where to?
Any house with a wooden gable lost its roof. Any house with two stories lost its second story. See here for an idea of where my neighborhood was (somewhere near the purple square) compared to where the storm made landfall.
I really don't remember what I did those first few days. I slept a lot. We all slept on mattresses in the living room so we could be together. I sat and stared at things. The phone had stopped working for perhaps a day, but then it was back, and I spent a lot of time talking to my friends. One of them lived across from a park, and said helicopters were dropping off supplies like water, ice, and MREs. The fresh water would have been nice, since the power was out at the pumping stations, too, so we only had what was in the fridge and the bathtub. We struggled with putting together meals.
On the fourth day the National Guard came through, clearing streets. They didn't do ours, but they did the next one over, and we managed to clear our own way to there. It was wonderful to see them. I just stood there, covered in the grime and sweat of four days in the Miami summer, grinning like a fool. I remember running towards the sound of dozens of chainsaws in my flip-flops. After that, my sister and aunts and uncles came to visit and help with clean up. It was hard, dealing with people who were still happy and whole. I was feeling deeply betrayed by nature. Even though the house was still standing, I felt violated. "Home" was no longer a safe place. I could feel my relatives looking at me, concerned by my behavior (though I was a teenager, so my behavior wasn't terribly healthy to begin with). But my parents were acting oddly, too. My mother screamed at my sister for daring to open the refridgerator door.
I remember sitting on the porch, and smelling the most wonderful smell. It was rich and full and I parted my lips to let it fill my mouth. We hadn't been able to cook anything lately so the scent of warm food was heavenly. The smell was even strong enough to overcome the foul, pervasive stench of rotting vegetation and mildewing carpet from the piles of trash in front of each house. I fetched my mom, and we followed the smell until we found someone who had set up a table with a giant pot of soup and a box of fresh bread. It was simple vegetable soup, heavy on the broth, light on the vegetables, but it was delicious.
The next day we went for supplies. We had to drive a long way to find stores that hadn't been destroyed, looted, or bought-out of anything useful. People were selling ice on the street for outrageous amounts. We got a generator. We ran it on shifts, powering the fridge for about half of each day. The water started running again, but we were warned to not drink it or get it in our mouth or eyes at all, since there might've been sewage contamination. At least we were able to flush as much as we wanted, and now that we could run the stove for short periods of time and had more charcoal, we could boil water for drinking or cooking or brushing our teeth.
The start of school was delayed because the roof of the school was damaged, but it still started before we got power back. We had to go to a laundromat so I could have clean clothes. I was able to take a sponge bath, but I was still pretty stinky. Fortunately, so was just about everyone else at school. Power came back a day or two later (after about nine days without), and then it was back to the daily grind-- only now we welcomed the grind, in the hopes it would crush the recent memories into unrecognizable pieces.
I experienced Hurricane Andrew back in 1992.
It came as a surprise. It was the first hurricane of the season but it appeared bizarrely late. It was also the weekend my sister was visiting for her birthday, so we weren't spending a lot of time watching the news. The day before, all of us gathered on my grandmother's "porch," we finally heard what sort of monster storm was heading towards us and how close it was. By then all the wood was off the shelves in the home improvement stores, and the grocery stores cleaned out of the standard supplies. We scrambled around desperately, because by then there was little chance of the storm veering off. Andrew had a disturbingly level path towards the end as it bore down along the line of latitude leading to south Florida. We filled the bathtub with water. We parked the van in front of the garage door and the car in front of the sliding glass door, hoping the vehicles would deflect any large debris. We put all the potted plants and yard implements into the second van, partially for their protection and partially for ours, so they wouldn't become deadly projectiles.
Our house was not destroyed, but it was a long, scary night. We had been through hurricanes and tropical storms before, but never one that drove us to huddle in a hallway with a mattress over us. Afterwards we wandered into the breaking dawn, caught in that numb state that follows the adrenaline rush of terror. Glass, rain water, shingles, small branches all littered my parents' bedroom. Mine was relatively unscathed except for a snow globe that had burst in the air pressure changes and a leak mark on the ceiling-- the plywood from a neighbor's hastily constructed window fortification had imbedded itself in our roof. The yard behind us lost all their palm trees, which had nearly been large enough to reach our house. The giant old trees did crush our fence and our tangerine trees. The streets were clogged with fallen limbs or entire trees or parts of houses. There weren't enough chainsaws in the neighborhood to clear our own way out. We were essentially trapped. We could walk out, but where to?
Any house with a wooden gable lost its roof. Any house with two stories lost its second story. See here for an idea of where my neighborhood was (somewhere near the purple square) compared to where the storm made landfall.
I really don't remember what I did those first few days. I slept a lot. We all slept on mattresses in the living room so we could be together. I sat and stared at things. The phone had stopped working for perhaps a day, but then it was back, and I spent a lot of time talking to my friends. One of them lived across from a park, and said helicopters were dropping off supplies like water, ice, and MREs. The fresh water would have been nice, since the power was out at the pumping stations, too, so we only had what was in the fridge and the bathtub. We struggled with putting together meals.
On the fourth day the National Guard came through, clearing streets. They didn't do ours, but they did the next one over, and we managed to clear our own way to there. It was wonderful to see them. I just stood there, covered in the grime and sweat of four days in the Miami summer, grinning like a fool. I remember running towards the sound of dozens of chainsaws in my flip-flops. After that, my sister and aunts and uncles came to visit and help with clean up. It was hard, dealing with people who were still happy and whole. I was feeling deeply betrayed by nature. Even though the house was still standing, I felt violated. "Home" was no longer a safe place. I could feel my relatives looking at me, concerned by my behavior (though I was a teenager, so my behavior wasn't terribly healthy to begin with). But my parents were acting oddly, too. My mother screamed at my sister for daring to open the refridgerator door.
I remember sitting on the porch, and smelling the most wonderful smell. It was rich and full and I parted my lips to let it fill my mouth. We hadn't been able to cook anything lately so the scent of warm food was heavenly. The smell was even strong enough to overcome the foul, pervasive stench of rotting vegetation and mildewing carpet from the piles of trash in front of each house. I fetched my mom, and we followed the smell until we found someone who had set up a table with a giant pot of soup and a box of fresh bread. It was simple vegetable soup, heavy on the broth, light on the vegetables, but it was delicious.
The next day we went for supplies. We had to drive a long way to find stores that hadn't been destroyed, looted, or bought-out of anything useful. People were selling ice on the street for outrageous amounts. We got a generator. We ran it on shifts, powering the fridge for about half of each day. The water started running again, but we were warned to not drink it or get it in our mouth or eyes at all, since there might've been sewage contamination. At least we were able to flush as much as we wanted, and now that we could run the stove for short periods of time and had more charcoal, we could boil water for drinking or cooking or brushing our teeth.
The start of school was delayed because the roof of the school was damaged, but it still started before we got power back. We had to go to a laundromat so I could have clean clothes. I was able to take a sponge bath, but I was still pretty stinky. Fortunately, so was just about everyone else at school. Power came back a day or two later (after about nine days without), and then it was back to the daily grind-- only now we welcomed the grind, in the hopes it would crush the recent memories into unrecognizable pieces.