So we stayed. Yeah, in hindsight it was stupid to stay. I don't need you to tell me. Our kids (16 and 21) are doing a perfectly fine job of that, don't you worry. Most everyone I know stayed. My parents. My brother and his family. My cousin and her family. Most of my staff, my friends, etc. Everyone I know sincerely believed on Monday and Tuesday morning that we would all be back at work on Thursday afternoon, latest Friday. No one thought what was forecast as a CAT 3 would be almost a CAT 5 at landfall. We also thought it would go further east. Many people also thought the big deal with this one was storm surge, which again, was not a concern for us.
We also discounted the weather reports because if you live in Florida, then you don't take the reporting about hurricanes very seriously. The reporters act like Hype Men for the storms. Every year it starts with the "This could be the most active hurricane season in years!!!!!!!" Right. It could also be the least active season, you guys can't reliably predict that either way. But you write the same story every year like clockwork. If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that this is not a new attitude for me because I mock these articles every year when they inevitably appear in the news cycle. Then there's the footage of reporters wildly exaggerating conditions. Or even conditions we were experiencing in real time while watching the reporter on TV (because we didn't even lose power or cable) make the biggest most dramatic deal out of what was just a bad rain storm.
None of this is an excuse. I'm just giving some context to our decision/thought processes. So, now you know where our heads were at, and also why we stayed which in hindsight was a stupid decision. We were prepared and took precautions both at home and our office, but I was totally unconcerned until the Waffle Houses all closed. By then it was too late to leave. We just had to hunker down, as one does.
So we are 12 days out from Michael. My home and office have power but my home does not have running water because pipes were busted by falling trees. My office suffered significant damage from a roof failure, a blown in window and a commercial grade french door which blew out with such force that it bent and twisted the wrought iron decorative railing affixed to the brick in front of it. My home took a hit and there's 3 trees left on my entire street. Almost everyone I know took at least one tree to their roof, one to their car, and there's not a fence or shed left in Bay County. We know people whose businesses are just gone. Or who have been told to tear what's left of their home down and start over. Boats are just gone, shattered to pieces. Intersections and streets I've driven for 47 years are unrecognizable. It is easy to get lost because all the familiar landmarks are gone. What you've seen on the news does not do the situation justice. It just doesn't.
After a hurricane like Michael, the first 48 hours are devastating. I don't care how tough, smart and resilient you are, you will not be operating at 100% mentally. Michael made landfall mid-day Wednesday. That was the longest four hours of my life. We did not feel right mentally until Sunday and that was partly due to having left Friday and having had a couple of nights of good sleep in the AC, hot showers, and hot food.
Your entire world is transformed. Your street is impassible without hiking boots and a hand axe. Your home is unrecognizable. Everything is just trashed. There's bits of leaves, dirt, and general detritus stuck to everything. You won't have power, water, and probably no cell phone service. No power and no cell service means no internet. No calls to family. No ability to find out what is going on, no ability to find out any information about anything.
I cannot stress enough how utterly overwhelming everything is. Your neighbors' homes will be trashed too. Someone may even be injured. After the storm, we all drifted outside like survivors climbing out of a bomb shelter. Our street and neighborhood resembled a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Words fail me when I try to describe the total devastation.
Add to that heavy concern and worry about your parents, siblings, friends. Once you go out and see what happened not just to your house but everyone else's then you begin to really worry about your loved ones.
Beginning the next morning, we began seeing search and rescue helicopters, presumably looking for survivors in the bay and canals. That was a sobering sight. And then the medivac choppers starting flying back and forth over our house and continued for a straight 24 hours, all day and night. I'll never forget the sound of those choppers flying back and forth all night. We found out later they were moving all the ICU patients from both hospitals.
So what do you do? You have to sit down and look around and figure out what you can do without injury. For us, we cleaned up inside as much as possible without electricity or running water. We checked on our neighbors and shared food and water. We tried to cover holes in roofs with tarps where we could safely. My husband removed most of a giant oak tree from our deck with a hand axe and saw because he could do it safely and that tree was crushing us all psychologically. He cut a path through neighbors' yards so that we could drive out.
We had a couple of days' food and water, both drinking and for toilets. But it was clear that it would be possibly weeks until we would have power so we decided to leave asap. We needed to get somewhere so that we could use the phone and call our insurance company. FYI somewhere ended up being Dothan. That's when we finally had a good signal. Thanks, Verizon.
In the next few days you'll ride a roller coaster. For every step forward, you'll have a set back and things will swing wildly from bleak to hopeful. You will also reach a weak moment where you want to just sign everything having to do with your insurance claim and repairs to your home away to someone else to take care of it.
Don't make decisions like that in the first 2 weeks. You will be fragile mentally. I am not a crier. I've cried every day, sometimes multiple times a day, since October 10. I've cried for myself, my family, my friends and my community. Our beautiful home is a wasteland now. It is just heartbreaking.
So what's some good news? When there's no power, there's no distractions and you get to know your neighbors. We live on a great street. Some of our neighbors were neighbors since my husband was a kid. We were friendly with each other, but for the most part not really connected. Fences make good neighbors, right? Well, we found out after the storm that we have extraordinarily kind and generous people on our street. We all helped each other. We are all changed for the better by the experience. We may all rebuild our fences (there isn't even one left standing), but they'll just be to keep the dogs in our yards.
After a hurricane like Michael, Facebook is where it is at. I know, I know, but hear me out. Facebook is where you keep up with the people you went to high school with and if you live in your hometown, a lot of those people still do too. It's also where you keep up with friends from college or grad school, or from past places you used to live. And even though their political rants or other posts may annoy or offend your sensibilities, a catastrophic event like Michael will remind you of their humanity, of the basic kindness and decency the vast majority of people carry around in their hearts, no matter how they voted in 2016 or their favorite college football team.
FEMA, the Governor, your CFO, relief organizations, your local governments, your Emergency Management Center, the power company, phone company, cell providers, cable company, garbage company, and community members will all communicate with you and with each other on Facebook. You'll be able to find out more information more quickly by following the pertinent pages on Facebook than in any other way. Assuming of course, you have a working cell phone that can connect to the internet. I'm looking at you, Verizon.
More importantly, you know what I found on Facebook? All the helpers.
Mister Rogers told this story of his mother:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
You'll receive offers of help from far away as well. Old coworkers, college friends, family friends, and your family will all reach out to you and offer to help you. We received so many kind and generous offers from family and friends, and even a few clients in the last 12 days that it is positively humbling.
Helpers, near and far. And more important than the help you receive, seeing those helpers will give you hope, keep you grounded, motivate you to get up and keep plugging away at what you can do for yourself and for others.
That's the really good news: the helpers.
They're everywhere but they sadly get no play in the news because their stories aren't dramatic or scandalous, and they don't help anyone score points for their political side. Sad, but true. Go look at the news coverage. Once it was established that Governor Scott has this situation firmly in hand, FEMA is here, Gulf Power is slaying the game with restoring power, and the LOCAL charities and organizations are taking care of business, interest in our story all but died.
There's midterms next month and I'd hazard a guess that 100% of our polling stations are out of commission. But there's no outrage or media coverage about a huge segment of residents of a state being at risk of being unable to vote. If you're okay with this because you didn't like how the Panhandle voted two years ago, well, that's just about the least American thing I've ever heard. Shame on you. Seriously. Go repeat 8th grade Civics; you clearly need a refresher.
The devastation to our area is beyond words. Please don't think that just because we are taking care of our own and FEMA and state resources are working well to help us, that we do not need more help. Just because the aftermath hasn't been a scandalous disaster doesn't mean we are not suffering.
We have no day cares. They're all gone. People can't go back to work without them. The schools are closed until November 12, and by then we need daycare centers to be able to come back to full staff. Given the damage to the school buildings, there's no way the kids go back without attending in shifts. Everyone will advance and everyone will graduate but it is going to be tough. Just think about the kids taking 3 or 4 AP courses. Most likely, they're just going to be month behind in preparation and the test dates will not change.
Power is coming back so quickly considering the devastation (God Bless all the Linemen and Gulf Power) but even then some people will not get power until October 24, and non-Gulf Power companies servicing outlying areas are predicting restoration in November. Most businesses suffered damages, so many of them catastrophic. There are so many people who went to bed October 9th with a job and went to bed October 10th unemployed. There's no numbers yet but it is safe to assume that hundreds of homes were totally destroyed, without even counting the losses on Mexico Beach which were downright unfathomable.
We are doing for ourselves, but we need more help. Donate, start a food drive, or just call a friend who lives here with a kind and encouraging word.
Be a helper.
Julie
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