Hurricane Watching

It’s been a minute since I was last under an official hurricane watch, but weather reports suggest this may be a bad season for them, and October’s off to a windy, rainy start here in Oreland.

Naturally, I’ve been following the story of Hurricane Ian’s deadly progress, through Florida and up the Atlantic coast. It’s raining here today, the storm’s last gasp. Though the name “Ian” conjures up a gentle Scottish lad in a kilt tending sheep while playing bagpipes, this is one nasty weather system. Many Floridians who stuck it out lost everything. Bridges and causeways have collapsed, isolating places like Sanibel Island. Alligators and snakes are everywhere. No one is sure when power will be restored. 

 

“Hurricane Season” factored into my childhood, because my Nana and Aunt Rose insisted on staying in their rental cottage in Normandy Beach, NJ, through the end of September. If a hurricane was brewing, they were evacuated--which meant my dad, the only driver in the bunch, had to leave NYC and go fetch them. There were occasional big storms, but our part of the Northeast was usually spared. 

 

It wasn’t until our church mission trips that I understood the full impact of hurricanes. In 2009 we went to New Orleans, four years after Katrina. I remember we repainted an elderly couple’s home (they had finally returned from staying with relatives in Baton Rouge). The owner showed us where the highwater mark was; it was amazing there was a house left at all. The same was true after Harvey in Houston. There, folks shared pictures with us of houses in their little town of Vidor, submerged up to the roofs. Our 2019 trip to Puerto Rico reminded us of the struggles after Maria (and we were so upset when these good people had to deal with Fiona recently). 

Vidor, Texas--house submerged

So who the heck would choose to live near the water?

 

Me, if I could afford it. 

 

While I wouldn’t be foolish enough to build along the beach itself, I can definitely see us in coastal Lewes at some point, at least part-time. Even seeing pictures this week of the Ian-sparked flooding in town, I’m still not dissuaded. Though I am by nature fretful, on some level I guess I don’t really grasp that a natural disaster could involve me personally. Why do I think I’d be spared? I don’t know. But that false sense of invincibility is part of who I am, who many of us are.

 

As our climate rapidly changes, it’s clear that there’s really no “safe” place; tornadoes and typhoons and blizzards are only getting worse. I pray we humans will wake up before it’s too late, that we (myself included) realize that no one is magically immune from disaster. 

 

This is the only world Aiden and Peter have ever known. How fair is this to them?

 

The alarm bells are sounding, everywhere. Will I listen? And act? 

 

As I write this, the rain’s tapering off. We’ve dodged a bullet. This time. 

Lewes Beach sandbar with the boys