Meeting Up With Irma

As we awaited the arrival of one of the bigger hurricanes on record, my 92-year-old mom had a question. While typing away into her iPad (she’s pretty high-tech), she asked “how do you spell the word ‘hussy?’”

Pre-storm, care free! (photo by Norma A.)

Johnny and Margie and her iPad, awaiting Irma

To backtrack a bit, I came down to Fort Myers, Florida to visit my parents a few weeks back and decided to stick around to help out during Hurricane Irma. As expected, we were ordered to evacuate, so we headed across town to a friend’s house that was outside of the evacuation zone. Their fortress of a home (high ground, solid construction, hurricane shutters, generator…and incredibly gracious hosts) was a very welcomed refuge.

Shutters makes it dark…and safe

Our hosts generously took in several others in similar circumstances–so all in all, there were 17 of us (12 adults, five children) in a three-bedroom house, along with a dog and two gerbils (hey, what’s a hurricane without a few gerbils?).

Watching the water build out front

This tiny window required standing on a stool, offered the only view of outside

Water still building

Can’t get much higher…but it didn’t

During the height of the storm

The storm itself was pretty exciting for a Virginia boy, tons of rain and wind that left a lot of standing water and downed trees (it was much worse elsewhere in the state).

Lots of standing water, but all of the homes that we could see were above water

Could have paddled to the neighbor’s

Another look at the street

Unlike areas to the south–and unlike Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands during Hurricane Maria–we were fortunate to get through without much damage. We did a lot of prep beforehand, moving anything that could blow away, but we also got lucky with the storm track.

Last minute, had time to take off an old satellite dish

No roofing cement? No problem, just put back the old screws

There was some flooding and damage in the surrounding neighborhoods, but for us the challenge was mostly about the long (several days) power outage, the seasonal heat, a shortage of gasoline, and a few health issues that thankfully resolved.

A mystery palm frond appeared in the pool…even though the cage was completely intact. A good Irma mystery.

Through it all, I learned a lot from the locals, who know a thing or two about hurricanes. Here are a few random tips:

• Back into the door: Garage doors are one of the weaker parts of a house, and bad things happen when the wind gets in under your roof. A trick is to back your car next to the door (from the inside), set the brake, and wedge in some wood (or whatever) between the door and the bumper to give the garage door more strength.
  
• Strings attached: Our friends had a hanging light above their front porch that couldn’t be removed ahead of the storm. So they tethered it with parachute cord, tying it off to the front pillars on the porch. It made it through, which was nice–but we also know that some folks lost everything, so we tried to keep it all in perspective.
• Keep water out, but keep it in, too: It’s old news that a filled bathtub means you can flush the toilets if you lose water, but tub stoppers often leak. Our friends put a little plastic food wrap around the plug to help the seal. We never lost water, but we had plenty on hand just in case.
• Give your freezer a quarter: Food safety is a big deal after a power outage, so one trick is to freeze a glass of water and put a quarter on top. If the quarter is still on top after power returns, the food in the freezer didn’t thaw and refreeze–and the meatloaf is ok to eat (although I still hate meatloaf).
  

  notice how close the car is to the (soon to be closed) door

  

  Hanging light tethered

  

  A little saran wrap around the stopper

  

  Quarter on top means freezer food is safe

In the coming days, the Fort Myers News-Press was still delivering and was one of our main links to the community and the state!

Lastly, there are some things that I knew before the storm but that were good to see in action again:

• You can’t have too much power (unless you are a dictator): Having a few UPS’s (uninterruptible power supplies) on hand is a good thing. The UPS’s work well for charging anything and the batteries last much longer than pocket-sized phone chargers.
  
• Siphons suck: Spend a million dollars on a good one, as the gas in your car is a great resource to feed a generator (if you are fortunate enough to own one). Inexpensive siphons don’t seem to work well with newer cars, and sitting on 15 gallons of gas with no way to get it into a generator is a bad feeling (ask me how I know).
  
• It’s dark, even when it isn’t: With spotty cell coverage, no internet or tv, and radio coverage that was hard to follow, it was amazing how little we knew about the storm. This was true both before, during, and after–even though we were right in the middle of it. At first we had cell reception and Souzz texted us images of the storm track. But the cell towers eventually went down and it wasn’t until days later that we heard details about the damage in the Keys and elsewhere across the state. Looking back, the lack of communications was equal parts unsettling and unburdening.

Important info

the track was good to know

football scores and hurricane info, together

• Reaching in: People from outside of the area wanted to help…and they did, simply by connecting on the phone (once our phones worked). Friends, family, the NMFA crowd, the 34^th crowd, and Red Cross peeps, you know who you are. Connecting with friends by phone or text was a huge boost.
• It takes a community: A neighbor that we had never met until the eve of the storm gave us five gallons of gas when we couldn’t get a drop anywhere. Shara and Kevin gave us gas and food and support, Dave fixed our generator the day before the storm (!), Janet from Publix grocery store offered hugs, Jonathan (the pool guy) gave us a big lift, and a total stranger stopped his car to help my mom, pretty cool.
  
  

  My dad and brother with our hero Dave

  

  The dogs did their part!

  

  It takes a community…or a community chest!

  

  My sis and Marlis

For days, anywhere you saw people in town, Irma was all that they could talk about, and sharing stories was definitely a part of the process. I can’t even count the number of conversations about the hurricane that started with “how did you do?”

As we put things back together, we went out of our way to thank the employees at Home Depot or Publix or CVS–places that are filling critical needs in the community. Each of those folks had their own story, but they were out there helping us (maybe later they’ll write a blog that’s more interesting than mine).

I also recognize that storms hurt even more for those with fewer resources, so we feel incredibly fortunate to have had so much help to bounce back. And our hearts go out to those that lost so much to Irma–and now to devastating Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean–and we are contributing to relief efforts. Our little adventure was pretty manageable when you view it in the context of the areas that were hardest hit.

**

As for my mom’s question before the storm, she was posting an update on Facebook, and her post ended with “Irma, you hussy, be gone!”