I live in Florida, but hail from Chicago, so the contrast
between living in the two areas of the country is very stark to me. The
experience of having to periodically run for my life from hurricanes has become
a reality. As I scurried about, preparing for Hurricane Irma, it struck me that
friends and relatives who were calling with their concerns, never participated
in this tradition that is a regular feature of life in southern, coastal areas.
Here, we begin our seasonal preparations every June as naturally as
breathing--stockpiling batteries, canned goods and water, testing radios,
bringing in outdoor furniture, checking shutters. We spent Hurricane Charley
huddled in our walk-in closet back in 2004, so I felt we have some experience
under our belts and had a certain confidence about the year’s series of storms
as they rolled across the Atlantic. However, this year’s hurricane season
brought Irma and a new experience—the stay in a local hurricane shelter—and,
given the series of hurricanes in the news, I thought I should relate what it’s
like for people who deal with hurricanes on a regular basis.
Hurricane shelters are local buildings that have been deemed
appropriate for housing large numbers of members of the community during times
of severe weather. It’s hard to describe the kind of damage 130 mph winds can
do to homes, businesses, roads and utilities in a community. You’ve seen the
pictures— in your imagination, just put your whole life and all you cherish in the
middle of those images. Hurricane Harvey had hit the Houston area a few weeks
before, and the images were very fresh for us. When Hurricane Irma suddenly
changed course and headed toward my home city (we joked news stations may as
well have mentioned our home address on weather reports), we got scared. We
considered hitting the road for a safer area, but Irma covered the entire
state, and hotels well into Georgia and Atlanta were already booked with
evacuees from the coming storm. So, we headed to our local hurricane shelter.
Day One: Our
shelter, one that took pets to accommodate our little Chihuahua mix, Bella, was
a huge and relatively new high school. We stood in line for some time to “check
in,” to have our names and our dog registered and to receive our identifying
wristbands. Police personnel were there to check IDs against their database. We
had our blankets, pillows, food and water, as recommended. We set up our little
encampment in a well-lighted hallway on the second floor. And we waited, safe and
secure, for the hurricane to roll in.
Day Two: The high school was built to serve about 2,000
students. It was expected to hold about 3,000 evacuees. Scared, last-minute
stragglers ballooned this figure to 4,000. About 500 pets were sheltered in a
separate part of the building. By the time the hurricane actually hit on Sunday
afternoon, there were people lined along the hallways and filling the
auditorium, with carefully cleared “walkways” between blanketed homesteads. All
types of people were there, older white people, young black families, Hispanic
extended family groups—everyone was there, from the tiniest newborns to most
fragile elders. There was not a ripple of discord, because we were all
sheltered against the storm—an exterior danger that made us all more tolerant
of more adjacent irritations. There were volunteer helpers to answer questions
and fire department medical personnel for health emergencies. Babies napped,
older gentlemen followed the hurricane track on their phones, children connected
to others and played companionably. Shelter authorities provided basic meals
three times each day and gave weather updates over the public address system.
People slept fitfully during the night, but they slept, stumbling at various
hours in the morning to the school bathrooms to brush their teeth and make
themselves presentable in this unusual situation.
Day Three: Evacuees read, did puzzles, talked of past
hurricanes, listened to music on their phones or watched streamed weather
reports. People collected at the glass-enclosed entryway and at windows to
watch the storm pass over. Trees bent, and the rain pounded. It came and went
uneventfully for us. At no time did any of us feel threatened. The lights
stayed on, and the air-conditioning continued to run. A curfew was in effect,
so no one could leave even after the worst of the storm was over. We settled in
for our last night as a refugee community, with a sense of relief and some
anxiety about what we would find when we returned to our homes.
All in all, our time as shelterers from the storm was
enlightening. If you ever wonder if our public educational facilities are truly
necessary, a time like this helps you understand they are more than just
buildings for education—they are centers of the community. They provide a
location—and an organizational structure—for many important services. Secondly,
you learn that people really are all alike. They love their families, they have
certain basic physical requirements, they respond emotionally in a uniform manner.
Thirdly, you understand how much we all need each other. The concept of “self
reliance” is an illusion—and always has been—in the face of nature’s power. And
finally, we should all remember we all live on the edge of a knife. Our
technology can disappear abruptly, the flow of fresh water can stop in an
instant, our homes can evaporate, medical care can be entirely absent. Those
who live in hurricane-prone areas understand this on a visceral level.
I hope I don’t have to do this too many times in the future,
but I would not have missed this experience for the world. It brought us back
to a primal level of human connection.
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