“I’m safe. House ok. No flooding in my area. No power. No internet. Cell phone service spotty.”
After waking up to a post-apocalyptic scene that I could only imagine from the reports on the radio, I walked a quarter mile down the block to find a place where I could get enough cell phone signal to call and send texts. I could not access the internet to post to social media. After the uncertainty of where it would land, hurricane Ian had devastated the coastline in my home of Naples, Florida. The storm surge brought the ocean up sixteen feet in some areas. A friend later sent me a picture with just the roof of his home extending above water. The wind conditions from the storm went up the coastline, driving salt water inward, and causing life-threatening flooding.
I sent a variation of the same text message to family and friends. I live far enough inland to not get the storm surge flooding, the wind and rain that battered my home were not as severe as the winds 50 miles north where the eye of the hurricane made landfall. In those places, parts of roofs were ripped off and flying debris broke through windows. In my yard, palm fronds and pine tree limbs covered the area like a blanket. I felt blessed to not have any obvious damage to my home. I had just gotten a new roof and gutters. I started cleaning up the driveway. When there is so little that you can control, you start with what you can.
No obvious power lines down on my street, but after the last hurricane it took many weeks to get the lights back on. I hear the now familiar sound of generators from other houses on the street, but not mine. I have well water; without electricity, I have no water. My bathtub is filled to flush the toilets. I’ve collected enough drinking water and foods that do not need to be cooked. I’ll have to deal with the fridge as food will begin to defrost and spoil. Without the internet and cell service, a strange feeling of disconnection kept me intermittently glued to the radio–my only connection to the outside world. Occasionally texts sneak their way onto my phone through the dead zone around my house. One of the cell towers must have been damaged to the already poor service that I usually get. I am grateful to the friend that weathered the storm with me, but now I am alone again as the roads opened up safely for driving. Three large transport helicopters with two propellers each thump overhead flying in formation, headed to the coastline for rescue. Chills run through my body. Help is on the way. I pray for those that they will find.
During a hurricane, the local hospital shifts into disaster mode and splits the entire staff into an A and B team. The A team will shelter at the hospital for 24 hours or until the roads are safe for the B team to come in and relieve the A team. As a doctor, the post-apocalyptic scene drove itself home when Lee county to the north of me closed all their hospitals and shipped all their patients out to nearby counties. The infrastructure of all four hospitals damaged from the flooding, water mains could no longer supply enough clean water. My own office has no power, and I think of the larger medical catastrophe.
Hurricanes bring with them fearful winds and heavy rains, tearing through roofs and sending water inside crevices, launching projectiles, breaking windows, soaking the ground with rain water and slowly rising, spawning tornadoes and gusts of winds that snap trees and branches, toppling whole trees as the soaked roots give way. This alone is a nightmare, but Hurricane Ian brought with it something else–storm surge. He slowed down just off shore, the anti-clockwise winds to the south of the eye drove salt water steadily onto shore that was already at high tide. Areas of mandatory evacuation began to see the water levels rise, not from the rains, but from the ocean.
A mother with her two young kids saw the local river rising to her house. She grabbed the ashes of her husband, loaded the kids into the car, and by the time that she got to the corner stop sign, water had reached half way up the truck tires. She told me that she was lucky to get out to the dry garage of a friend on the other side of her neighborhood. Two others on her street had their cars stall. Two days later, she and her two sons clean up the yard, grateful to be alive. Others are not so lucky as the reports continue to come in. Soaked mattresses and ruined furniture on the curbs nearby, I wondered how many lost their lives in this hurricane.
The storm has passed, and we move into clean up and recovery mode. This is the time when we come together to support each other and determine how to move forward. Friends have given me a place to shower and cool down, access to the internet to send this blog, and a cooked meal. I am touched by the many messages of concern from friends scattered in other parts of the world. In the time after the stress of any traumatic event, there is sadness, anger, and grief. There is fear and anxiety. However, clean up and recovery mode will give way to rebuilding. In the face of so little control, we do what we can. My potted plants and lawn furniture are back on the front porch as I sit and look out over the lawn. Everything in a new haphazard arrangement as the possible projectiles safely made their way out of the house and garage. Red flowers bloom on the butterfly bushes. The gentle morning breeze brushes my cheeks and rustles the battered tree limbs. A little bird flies out the bushes singing and singing and singing.
As we pull together as a community to recover and eventually rebuild, we lean into RESILIENCE and hope to eventually move forward to NEW GROWTH. The process takes time, and for now… we lean into the sadness surrounded by so much loss, help those that we can, seek gratitude for what we still have, seek help ourselves, and grasp hope where we can find it.
Addendum:
Power returned Sunday 10/2/2022, along with it came the internet and water. “I am ok. House ok. Power, internet, water has returned. Yard damage and debris to clean up.” Life for me is normalizing, but the incredible damage to Southwest Florida is astounding. There will be a lot of rebuilding. Many of us are feeling blessed in the midst of this tragedy.