We became Floridians four years ago to escape the brutal winter storms of the northeast, and for a change in quality of life. We moved to Florida at the end of June during a brutally hot summer, and quickly learned of the daily afternoon thunderstorms. Florida is known for its beautiful sunshine, but it’s also notorious for torrential downpours and frequent, but short thunderstorms. Rainbows became an almost daily summer occurrence, and we marveled in their beauty in the early evenings.
For the first time in three years into our new state residency, we were faced with an overactive hurricane season. In the previous three years, we had turned a deaf ear to the local warnings of hurricane preparedness. When the forecasters began hyping up Harvey and we ultimately saw its destruction, I frantically scoured Amazon for supplies and materials that I might need if we were ever faced with a similar catastrophe. Just one week later, we were threatened with such a storm. Thank God for Amazon Prime! Or so I thought…As it turned out, all of Florida was ordering hurricane supplies on Amazon. Orders that had been promised two-day Prime delivery kept getting delayed. I had received most of my orders prior to the hurricane, but the most important item, a weather radio with a USB charging port and flashlight, was delayed and ultimately scheduled to arrive AFTER the hurricane would be over. Crap.
In the early days of the forecast for Hurricane Irma, I decided to rush to my local warehouse club and stock up on water, batteries, and food, figuring I’d beat the crowd as we were nearly a week out. I arranged to meet one of my friends at the store, and as soon as I got there, I scrambled around the parking lot to find a shopping cart. There were none. So I waited at the exit of the store and approached an exiting shopper to ask if I could claim her cart.
“Hi!” I said cheerfully.
She looked at me nervously as she clutched her purse tighter under her arm.
“I’m not crazy, I swear. There are no more shopping carts anywhere, and I was wondering if I might be able to escort you to your car and help you load your items into your trunk so that I could have your cart when you’re done?”
“Oh!” she said as she looked around, observing others doing the same thing. “Sure!” she agreed.
My friend met me at the entrance and we rushed inside and immediately went to the water aisle. It was quickly turning into a chaotic scene. We grabbed a water supply for both of our families and then headed to the less crowded aisles to find dry snacks and food that would satiate toddlers during a potentially extended period of time without electricity.
With our cart loaded to the top, we decided to get on the line to checkout. At this point, the line was all the way to the back of the store. As the line inched forward, we grabbed impulse items on the way to the register, including batteries and flashlights. After we paid for our supplies, we both steered this mammoth haul towards the exit, where we were greeted by an anxious shopper looking for a cart. They graciously paid forward our previous gesture and helped load our trunks in order to redeem our cart.
When I returned home from the store, I saw many neighbors in my community hanging their hurricane shutters. Panic began to set in. This was real. I grabbed the box of hurricane shutter hardware and opened it up to see what this task entailed. Inside I found work gloves, nuts and bolts, safety goggles, instructions and a DVD. I watched the DVD to determine if this was something I could tackle on my own, since I love doing things that people would typically doubt that a girl can do. I brought the first panel out to the lanai to see if I could hang one over the sliding glass door where the bolts were in place on the exterior of the house. To my dismay, the bolts did not align with the holes on the shutter. I looked down. We just had all of the pavers ripped up and re-laid to correct a flooding issue that we were having on the lanai. When they re-laid the pavers, they didn’t account for the height of the hurricane shutters. {Forehead slap}.
Since hubby lived in a different city four hours away during the week, I was on my own here. I called my best friend’s husband and asked him to come over and help. We got flathead screwdrivers and started lifting up the pavers. We decided to do this in a logical and fluid way, with one of us lifting and the other moving it out of the way. As he lifted each one, I was there with Sharpie in hand to write the number on the back of the brick so that we could replace it to its proper spot when this storm was over. One by one, we had our assembly line of lift, label, and relocate for all 30 pavers. Next, we laid out all of the numbered shutter panels and started hanging them. Our saving grace was the outdoor TV on the wall of the lanai so we could watch the US Open. It took us several hours to hang shutters on just one set of sliding glass doors. By 10:30 pm we were hot, sweaty, and exhausted. We decided to call it a night and would resume the project in the morning. The next morning, we completed covering the second sliding glass door and dragged all of the outdoor furniture into the garage for safe storage. We removed any objects from the exterior of the home that could become projectiles.
We didn’t have the time or energy to hang the shutters on the windows of the house. The storm was only a couple of days away and my friend had to secure his home, as he was having a lot of family members ride out the storm at his house. I figured since we secured the sliding doors, if any windows were broken, those wouldn’t be as big of a deal to replace. At some point you have to just throw up your hands and focus on other important priorities.
Once the work outside was done, I got to work on the inside. All irreplaceable heirlooms and baby photos were placed into ziplock bags and then into secure plastic bins and placed up high onto shelves. Any glass or fragile objects that were out on display were placed inside cabinets and other secure places.
I got a notification on my neighborhood website that there was a sandbag filling station setup at the high school down the street. I raced over and grabbed the maximum 10 bags that I was allowed. Everyone helped each other to fill their bags in an assembly line sort of fashion. I grabbed my sand bags and hauled them home to be used to reinforce the garage door and front door, if needed.
As the weather forecast became more intense and was predicted to be a category 5, I became more frightened. At the time, my husband was living 4 hours away in a different city during the week and he would come home on weekends. The hurricane was expected to hit during the week and I didn’t want to be trapped inside the house with two little kids and no electricity (or Internet!) for days on end. After I had done all of this hurricane preparation, I made the snap judgment decision to evacuate. I called hubby and told him that we were coming to get him and we were going to drive to Virginia to stay at my brother’s house. I packed up the car with our irreplaceable belongings and turned the back seat of the minivan into a snack station for the kids. I grabbed every DVD we owned and packed a little suitcase for the dog as well.
My neighbor across the street saw me loading my van and asked if I needed help putting the rest of the shutters up on my windows. I didn’t want him to have to take on this back breaking labor while I wasn’t there, so I thanked him for his kind gesture, but politely declined. He then informed me that there was a man with a team of people going around our neighborhood and installing shutters. I called him and arranged to pay him to hang the shutters on all of the windows. He was a godsend.
In the meantime, I went back in the house and made sure that all final preparations had taken place. I put the counter stools on top of the kitchen island and the dining chairs on top of the dining room table. I lifted all smaller objects off the floors in my kids’ bedrooms and placed them on top of their beds. I loaded the kids and the dog into the van and went inside for one final sweep. As I looked around, tears welled up in my eyes. What if this is the last time I will see my house intact? What if the house floods and all of our belongings are destroyed? We didn’t have time to clean up the playroom and there were toys strewn everywhere. Images of childrens’ toys floating in a flood of dirty water quickly filled my head. I composed myself so that the twins wouldn’t see me upset. I reminded myself that the most important outcome of this entire experience is the safety of my family; our house is replaceable, we are not. I turned off all of the lights, locked up the house, and headed off for the first leg of our trip.
As I was driving, I had a million thoughts running through my head. From fear to rationalization, to optimism. Then I realized something. Today was my birthday. Definitely a memorable one.
We got to hubby’s apartment around 6pm and let the kids run around for an hour to burn off energy before our overnight drive. We strategically filled up with gas so as to avoid the mayhem that was occurring due to the gas shortage. We stopped every few hours to use the restroom, but kept going to escape the nightmare traffic we kept hearing about from others who had fled. My watch kept reminding me to stand up. Not an option.
We arrived the next morning at my brother’s house at 8am and my parents drove down from Connecticut so that we could all be together for a few days, something that doesn’t happen often, but is treasured when it does. I got to celebrate my birthday with my family; the best gift I could have asked for.
We prepared to watch the hurricane on TV. Our area was projected to be in the eye of the storm. During the peak of the storm, it miraculously took a quick turn and missed our area, though causing destruction in surrounding areas. We were spared. After living through the experience, we decided that we were unlikely to flee from future forecasted hurricanes, but would be well prepared and stocked up.
If you live in an area that could potentially be affected by a hurricane, you’ll want to be well prepared. Check out my list of hurricane must-haves and how to prepare for a hurricane here, and please be safe!
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Tamar Blazer is an attorney-turned-twin mom, with a passion for her family, friends, writing, good food, home decor and laughing. When she’s not lamenting on her lack of sleep, you can find her doing one of the too many projects she likes to take on, usually with a twin on either side.
