Thanks to all who helped out after hurricanes hit
Over the past few weeks, attention has turned to America’s coastlines as two large hurricanes battered Texas first in Hurricane Harvey, then the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Florida in the strongest storm on record in Hurricane Irma. Tragedy and catastrophe followed in the wake of these storms, and as the death toll rises and those displaced by the disaster face the struggle of daily survival. That doesn’t include the cleanup and rebuilding efforts to come for flooded suburbs drying out in Houston, or the flattened beachside homes on the Florida Keys.
I encourage all readers to take the example of local volunteers who have helped with relief efforts to give back if they are able, for those people are in need now.
Not two weeks from now, or next year. Right at this moment as you are reading this column I urge you to pause, find a way to help and find consolation in doing the right thing before coming back to finish reading. I will only suggest making contributions to a nonprofit group or organization you trust to spend it on relief efforts.
My thoughts and well wishes also go out to those who briefly called Polk County a temporary shelter in flight from Hurricane Irma and who face an uncertain future upon their return to their homes. I had the chance to briefly speak with a few older couples from coastal Georgia and Florida, all who were able to report their homes had been spared the worst of the intense wind and rains of Hurricane Irma.
I will also ask for future thoughts and well wishes for a long friend, former boss and landlord Charlotte Atkins, former Editor of the Rome News-Tribune. Her home on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was spared for the most part, but like all residents on the islands that felt the full strength of Hurricane Irma she suffers with everyone else in the aftermath from a need for water, food and relief aid. She posted on her Facebook when I wrote this column last week that she was likely heading back to the states in part to help work on relief efforts and tell the stories of the islanders who rode out the storm and are now cleaning up and will soon start rebuilding. I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening with her in the coming weeks and share any ways you might be able to help should you wish to do so.
There’s going to be a lot to do in the months and years ahead.
I can say with the confidence of someone with firsthand experience of the unknowns involved with tropical weather the anxiety of what you might find after a long trip home with all that time to consider the what-ifs of storm damage is both an unsettling and emotional experience.
I might have mentioned in past columns that I once lived in Beaufort, South Carolina, the coastal community that is best known for where the United States Marine Corps sends its recruits through Parris Island training base, and for the beach and golf resorts on neighboring Hilton Head Island.
Our first year in Beaufort we were lucky not to have suffered the ill will of hurricane season and were spared the dreaded mandatory evacuation order, which had been threatened several times with a busy season. Hurricane Felix for instance, an August storm in the Atlantic basin, caused a lot of beach erosion that year but turned back out to sea before it did any more damage. The following year in 1996 my mother swears we headed out of town for a wedding ahead of a hurricane evacuation and packed extra just in case, but I couldn’t remember it personally. I also know well who got married - longtime friends of the family Debbie and Phil — but unfortunately don’t have any memory of the wedding itself.
I do remember our epic trip from our home on Fripp Island, South Carolina, to LaGrange to stay with my grandparents as my family fled in two vehicles from Hurricane Bonnie in 1998. That was the year we packed up all kinds of things — cherished items, photo albums, anything we didn’t think we could part with at the time — and drove for somewhere around 13 hours through day and night to reach Troup County and finally get some rest.
The vivid memory of that trip was of how long we sat in traffic on one four-lane roadway out of town packed with bumper-tobumper traffic, and being stuck behind school buses full of Marine recruits from Parris Island. At times the buses would rock back and forth as those who got in trouble were forced into doing pushups in the aisles. I’m not 100 percent sure my mind didn’t create that memory to try to relieve the painful boredom of being stuck in traffic during that time, but either way it makes for a good detail in an otherwise unremarkable tale of being stuck in the stop-and-go flow of mandatory evacuation travel. I distinctly remember some awful things coming out of my father’s mouth as I rode with him on that trip, things I dare never to repeat for both of our sakes. I fear a recent trip to Atlanta being stuck in traffic provided me with a glimpse that when it comes to being stuck in front of slow moving vehicles, I have picked up his bad habits too.
It took 13-plus hours for us to go from the coast to West Georgia, a trip that under normal circumstances usually took us 8. Keep in mind back then there were no smartphones to play on, the internet was still in an unsure infancy, and the idea of streaming video for entertainment during such times didn’t exist. Boredom and anxiety combined to make it a road trip I wish I could forget.
We were lucky on that trip that we had a place to go with family not too terribly far away, and that we returned home to find that our house was fine and the only real damage was the need to gather up armfuls of pine cones and tree branches blown down from the winds that swept by from Hurricane Bonnie before it blew into coastal North Carolina instead and did millions in damage.
Luck determined that a year later we would be out of town again during a third evacuation from the coast, but this time we found ourselves driving around on a college tour as my sister was choosing where she wanted to spend her next four years after graduating in 2000. The family found itself in Raleigh, N.C. at North Carolina State University around the time Hurricane Floyd struck, once again dumping a large amount of rain on North Carolina and mainly sparing Beaufort once again.
Chance plays just as much of a role in determining whether one comes home to a whole house or being completely wiped out in these storms, which is part of what makes having to leave after boarding everything up and deciding what gets packed into the backseat of the car and what is being left behind to the fates is so horrible.
When faced with destruction, personal belongings take on a greater amount of emotional value than I previously thought.
Beaufort kept dodging mother nature’s bullets up until last year, when Hurricane Matthew came ashore and brought with it storm surge, high winds and left behind millions of dollars in damage for local residents to clean up. Among the places hardest hit was Fripp Island, which I had called home and somehow went through my six years of coastal living without experiencing the ill effects of nature’s power.
I share these recollections to remind people that this isn’t a vacation for those who have been ordered from their homes. They are stuck playing a waiting game they didn’t choose, one that potentially ends in dire consequences.
So I applaud the efforts of local organizations and churches who stepped up to provide meals and support for the evacuees last week who fled ahead of Hurricane Irma for what they did.
Not just because I believe they set a good example for the people of Polk County and show off our generous and hospitable spirit, but because as someone who has felt what our visitors went through this past week, I can truly say it is appreciated more than you know.