September 21, 2018 – Aftermath of Hurricane Florence

         It came – excruciatingly slow.  The more the news talked about the storm, the more I became concerned.  My entire life, I have been fortunate that I have never been a victim of flood, hurricane, tornado or fire.  I’ve come very close on a few occasions, but not devastated like the thousands of North Carolina and South Carolina residents after this Hurricane Florence.

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         At our first apartment – no it was technically our second apartment but at the same complex and in the same building.  We’d just moved from the studio on the lower level to the second floor apartment the weekend before.  In the middle of the winter, in the middle of the night something woke us. We heard fire trucks and noise. The sound of a fire truck siren still makes my blood curdle, even now forty-plus years later.

         For some lucky reason, I rolled out of bed, didn’t just stand up and so did my husband.  We went to the bedroom window and below us saw a crowd of people and another fire truck arriving.  That is when we realized acrid smoke hung to our waists. What had actually awoken us – was not the smoke and not the fire truck sirens but the pounding on our apartment door.

         I could hardly see or breath, but I managed to find shoes, my purse, my car keys and pulled on my mid-shin length rabbit coat over my skimpy slip type nightgown.  My husband found his wallet and pulled on a coat. 

        

When we opened the door we were stunned, we could barely make out the full clad fireman in the dark acrid smoke filled hall.  He shouted at us,

         “Only you two?”

         My husband must have said Yes.

I don’t remember much more than the blur of being grabbed by that fireman and shoved to the next fireman a few feet down the stairs and then handed off to another and then another and several more until I’d been grabbed and tossed like a sack of potatoes down the stairs to the first landing and then down the rest of the stairs to the lobby and physically escorted out of black smoke filled building.  I only caught glimpses of the fire fighters through the smoke.

It was terrifying.  The crowd, the sound of the engines, the water hoses underfoot, the freezing cold.

         The fire fighters rushing to and fro as we heard snips of information from the crowd.

         “Fire on the third floor”

         “Papers shoved in a couch and set on fire”

         “Lover’s spat”

         “Did you get them out on the second floor, they just moved upstairs from the studio last weekend,” we finally heard Mike the apartment complex manager ask a fireman.  Mike was talking about us.  As soon as he saw us, he turned away to help the authorities.

         Not really knowing what to do next, we silently went to my car, and climbed in to stay out of the way and out of the driving cold wind.  I watched in horror as I thought the building would burn to the ground.  Who has apartment insurance?  We sure didn’t.

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         Five years later, Bates City, Missouri – rural America. Flat farm land where there are fields of wheat to the curvature of the earth.

We’d just moved into the housing complex and I had just arrived home from work.  The wind was up, the sky was a funny canary yellow.  I heard one of the  metal chairs of the new patio set tumble over in the wind.  I went out to retrieve the glass top from the patio table.  Once I had lifted it up, the wind took me for a twirl and I was hard pressed to make the six steps to the front door steps and make it up those steps and open the door at the same time holding onto the 36 inch glass stop.  Slam went the outside door back to the house tearing off the chain at the top. I stumbled into the living room with my glass top and plopped on top of it on the rug.  Scrambling up, I pulled the outside door closed.

         There was no doubt in my mind this was a tornado coming.  I changed out of my office clothes and pulled on jeans and sneakers.  I pulled together a few things.  Where was my husband, he should be home any minute from work – what should I do?  Heck we’d been in this house less than two weeks.

         The blaring sirens went off.  I swear they were right above my house.  I opened the outside door and held tightly on to it to listen.  Not a sound except the siren.  Then it stopped and the sky turned a glowing greenish yellow.  Not a bird could be heard and eerie silence then rising wind.  Coming through the development was a police car with a loud speaker. 

“A tornado has been sighted less than five miles away, go to the shelter as soon as possible.”  They repeated that phrase again and again.

         I thought, what shelter?  I could now hear a train, I didn’t know we had trains that close, I hadn’t seen any tracks, but then, I didn’t know the neighborhood at all.

         An unknown to me woman was running down the road with a bird cage in one hand, pillow under her arm alongside her young daughter clutching a kitten to her chest. She paused to look at me and catch her breath. 

         “You’ve got to go to the shelter – now,” she shouted at me.

         “Where is it?” I yelled over the sound of the train.

         “The basement of the clubhouse – quick – be quick.”  They ran off.

         A blast of wind, I closed the outside door and assessed the situation.  My husband didn’t know where the shelter was, I didn’t want to be separated from him.  Just then, I spotted his car coming up the road dodging all the residents running for the shelter.

         He burst into the house.  I quickly informed him what was happening. 

         “We’ve got to go!”

         “I’ve got to take a shower and change – I was pounding sprues all day.”

         Stunned I simply stood there. What was he thinking?  Didn’t he know there was a tornado in the area? While he was in the shower I laid out clothes and a sweater and then I had enough sense to find a flashlight. I kept prodding him and prodding him and he seemed to be take his time.

         A few minutes later, we left the house, but we were now caught in driving rain and wind, with not a glimmer of daylight left.  The rushing rain water was half way up to our knees as we splashed in a gallop down the street to the shelter, down side stairs and into a large cement walled open room.  Dogs, cats, birds, men, women and kids of all ages.  Total strangers looked up at us in unison, with frightened faces.  We were the last in the door as the complex manager was operating the door.

It was like a scene out of an old black and white film of London in the blitz bombings.  Families sitting on the floor in groups, couples leaning up against the wall. Teenagers grouped together trying to act cool. Pet owners holding onto leashes of their beloved pets or holding them in their laps.

         A new neighbor we’d meet a few days before, rescued us from the awkwardness.

         “Come sit with us.  They’ve sighted the tornado is it is headed this way, but there is a hill between it and us in its path.”

         Later I asked where the railroad tracks were in relation to where we were.

         “Honey child, you didn’t hear no train – what you heard was a Tornado.”

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         Two years later:  Hollywood, Florida – tropical storm.  We lived a quarter of a mile from the inner coastal.

         I was on my way home from work. The streets were already flooding when I left Fort Lauderdale that afternoon.  I drove a small, low to the ground car – a Le Car.  At one intersection that had a little dip in the center of the intersection, I noticed when the light turned green that the larger cars were pushing water above their hoods as they entered and drove out of the intersection.  There was a police car to my left and another one across the intersection coming my direction. I needed to turn right but the water would still be too deep for my little car. 

I made a snap decision and boldly drove up over the curb at my immediate right and drove along the sidewalk and grass.  Half way down that road another low place and several cars were stalled in the water ahead in the street.  I made a second brassy choice and came off the sidewalk and grass and  drove up over the curb to drive slowy down the grass center median a few blocks to get to my street.  I got home without getting my car into flood waters, but kept looking in the rear-view mirror expecting police car lights any moment.

Hours later, still waiting on my husband to get home from work, I kept looking out the front door.  The street was overflowing the curbs.  Half-hour later, the water had saturated the lawn up to the one step to the door. Another half hour there were palm fronds floating down the rushing water in the street and the flooded intercostal waters were lapping at the threshold of the front door.

This was a rental house and our first tropical storm.  I went through the house and took everything at floor level that could get wet – shoes out of the bottom of the closets, baskets of magazines in the living near the couches, Christmas ornaments shoved under the beds, etc.  I lifted everything I could lift up above a foot and tossed it on beds and bureau tops, and tables. 

I had plastic egg crates in the garage, unloaded the books out of them and piled them on the washer and dryer.  I put a pair of egg crates at the ends of each sofa and love seat. My plan was when my husband got home, we’d pick up the couch and loveseat and at least get another foot of safety in keeping them dry.

I sat and waited.   Luckily the water never rose above the threshold and didn’t flood in. We didn’t have to lift the furniture. But, for weeks we had crabs scuttling in amongst the bushes around our house until they found their own way back to the inter coastal.

Again, we had been spared.

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         I don’t do possible life threatening situations well – they stress me out.  And, when those occasions come upon me and pass me unscathed – you can be assured, prayers of thanks are sent on high that we’ve come through the storm unscathed.

         I only wish the rest of my fellow Carolinians could have been spared all the hardships they now face.