Guard couple tie knot during storm
ORLANDO, Fla. — Lauren Durham had a poofy white dress and plans for an intimate beach wedding on the second weekend of September. Instead she got married in fatigues, with no makeup, in a vast hangar filled with rescue vehicles and paramedics just hours before she would rush into a hurricane to try to save her fellow Floridians.
She and her fiance, Michael Davis — both of them senior airmen with the Air National Guard — were deployed indefinitely to assist with the rescue. They let their outof-town guests know they’d probably miss their own wedding and headed to the Orange County Convention Center to wait out the hurricane with hundreds of other relief workers before being sent into the state’s most devastated regions.
They were eating breakfast with some friends Sunday morning, and one said, “Hey, why don’t you guys get married during the hurricane?”
Durham said: “It started out as a joke, and it just kind of unfolded. And it turned out to be really great.”
Dozens of people — some longtime friends from the service, some strangers from across the country who came to assist with the rescue efforts — set up folding chairs. A few found tuxedo T-shirts to wear, despite the closure of all the stores in town for the storm. Someone came up with a bouquet of orange flowers. Their best friend in the Guard happens to be a notary and officiated.
They don’t think they’ll be able to come up with a cake, but that’s OK: “We have plenty of snacks. MREs do have Skittles in them, so we’re pretty excited,” Durham said.
Her wedding dress had already been purchased — waiting for her at home. “It was a big poof flowy princess gown,” she said, then gestured down at her fatigues. “But, you know, I love wearing this uniform, so this works.”
Durham, 24, and Davis, 26, met right out of high school, and have been together for five years. Davis has served for eight years, Durham for three.
They’re not quite sure how their families will feel when they find out they got married in front of a rack of rubber rescue boats.
“I think it will be quite a surprise for them,” Durham said, “but I think they’ll understand, it was very, very impromptu.”
It never occurred to either to try to beg off duty for their wedding.
“Service before self,” Davis said, and it will be a great story to tell their kids one day.
NEW YORK — It’s a paradox of hurricane coverage: People on television spend days warning the public to get out of harm’s way, then station their correspondents squarely in the middle of howling wind and rain and hope they don’t get hurt.
That was the case throughout Sunday’s gripping coverage of Hurricane Irma’s assault on Florida. Journalists were the shock troops allowing the nation to experience the storm from the comfort of their living rooms. Networks all brought their top teams in on the weekend for special coverage, nonstop on the news channels.
Yet when a huge tree limb crashed to the ground behind NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez, forcing him to scurry away during a live shot, it illustrated the danger many journalists faced. Network executives were one flying projectile away from a tragedy that would have them facing hard questions about whether they were placing a quest for exciting TV and ratings above common sense and public safety.
Several journalists who were outside sought the relative security of building balconies that blocked some of the wind or, like NBC’s Kerry Sanders, a concrete parking garage. Yet many felt they couldn’t truly convey the storm’s power without showing themselves getting buffeted by the elements.
The rain “does seem like it’s getting shot through a fire hose at you,” said CNN’s Chris Cuomo, assigned to Naples, Florida, as the intense eye wall passed over him.
NBC’s Miguel Almaguer had a yellow tow line, one end wrapped around his waist and the other around a concrete pillar, to steady him as he did a live shot. ABC’s Gio Benitez also employed a rope as he stood on a balcony. CNN’s Kyung Lah gripped a metal railing.
After a couple of hours getting water blown in his face, CNN’s Cuomo was comfortable enough to offer advice to a colleague on positioning himself for a live shot: Don’t stand with your back to the wind.
Cuomo’s experience passing through Irma’s eye offered some of the coverage’s most fascinating moments. Only minutes after getting hit by the worst of the winds, he found himself standing on a Naples street during a period of eerie calm. The palms stood limp beside him. He consulted with meteorologist Chad Myers, who was in a dry studio reading maps and estimating how many minutes Cuomo had until the wind would return, this time from the opposite direction.
“Now I get why people get lulled into a false sense of security,” he said, “because it does feel like it’s over.”
It wasn’t. The danger hadn’t passed for journalists or Florida, particularly as the challenge to capture storm surge added a fresh layer of risk.