Yeah. Well. It is hurricane season. Here in North Florida in the panhandle, we're used to being the target of every durn model of the path of whatever tropical disturbance/soon-to-be-a-hurricane that gets projected.
It's...anxiety producing.
The first hurricane I remember was one named Donna back in 1960. I was living on the east coast of Florida then, was a small child, and can remember watching trees bending over in ways I had no clue, up until then, that trees could bend.
They are far more flexible than you can imagine.
But as I learned in 1985 during Hurricane Kate, they are not as flexible as you would like. That gal hit us with a force which knew no bounds and every yard in Tallahassee had trees downed and cars hit and roofs staved in and we were without power for weeks. The roads were covered in branches and debris to the point where you couldn't drive on them to get to a store that might have food and ice if you wanted to and your car wasn't smashed. It was a big, fat lesson in how dependent we are on things like roads and electricity. Our phones still somehow worked and friends from out of town would call after viewing the resulting mess on TV and ask how we were doing and what was going on. It was eye-opening to realize that they knew more than we did, being limited as we were for information to battery-operated radios and the places we could walk, crawling over fallen trees and downed power lines.
Don't get me wrong- I've never suffered through anything like Katrina or Andrew, but I'll be completely happy if I never do. I remember during Hurricane Kate, sitting in the hallway of our house with the kids and the radio, my youngest then being only two months old, as the wind outside howled and trees cracked and then came the sound of a train, knowing we were nowhere near a train track. Little tornado spinners were flung off from the winds and we held our breath as the rain slashed and we hoped the roof would remain intact, the walls would stand.
We were lucky and they did, but what I realized is that being a hurricane is not unlike being in labor- once it's begun, there is no way out and there is no way to stop it. There is only hunkering down and acceptance.
And here comes, quite possibly, another. The thing is, you never know exactly what the circumstances are going to be until the last moment, and even then, not exactly. All those model paths that show Fay coming our way are just that- computer models. And they don't forecast what the storm's strength will be. Will the storm linger over the warm waters of the Gulf, gathering power and fury and then aiming itself our way to spend it on top of our heads?
Don't know.
And of course we're not ready. The generator isn't working. I have no idea if I have the batteries I need. Water in jugs? Nah. Canned food? Sure. If you like fat-free evaporated milk.
I think of all the grouper and venison in the freezer. I think with even more dread of the water oak in the front yard that is going to pitch itself onto my roof one of these days, dammit, given the right circumstances and I hope the right circumstances don't present themselves next week.
We have these giant sacred live oaks with branches extending over the house that are bigger than most entire trees. My house has been here for almost 150 years and has obviously weathered more than a few storms, but it's still vulnerable.
As are we all.
Which is what these storms and other forces of nature remind us of in graphic and sometimes terrifying ways.
When it's just you and your family and all the panting, terrified dogs, sitting in what you perceive to the be safest spot of your house with a smokey kerosene lantern throwing ghostly shadows up on the walls and the winds roaring outside and the yard washing itself away in the flooding waters, you know in no uncertain terms what the nature of nature is.
She can be cruel, y'all.
I think I'll go buy some canned goods and batteries.
I think I'll round up some candles and make sure I have lamp oil.
And the waiting begins.