Living through Beryl

My first real adult brush with weather disasters happened on April 27, 2011. I had decided to that the girls would skip school that day because tornados were predicited, if you know anything about tornados you know that they tend to ramp up around 2-4 in the afternoon, right about the time school gets out. We also lived in a trailer surrounded by trees so going to my parents’ house in town was always a safer option. This time it potentially saved our lives. As we watched the footage of the tornados ripping across the south the newcaster mentioned a first aid center was set up in the small area we lived in. I mentioned the damage must have been bad because they had never done that before, not five min later my neighbors called crying to make sure I was okay. Our home had been demolished. They’s had an F1 tornado go through our area, the result was three trees (one in each bedroom) of our home. This event changed how I saw the world. Within an hour of the tornado hitting people were out providing first aid, water, and clean up assistance. Men we did not know from my husband’s work came with totes to help us get as much of our belongings as we could. By the next day FEMA was on the ground with food, shower trucks, etc..

Disasters show me that the idea of community is still strong in a world that seems cold and selfish. People work together to provide not just assistance but also comfort. I saw a flicker of that this time. The first day after Beryl families were helping each other with cleanup, kids played in the streets, people grilled for the neighbors, they offered their homes for charging. However, it left just as quickly. I am not getting into the mishandling of everything or the politics that were being made off of the people ( maybe I will a little) but the community spirit. And I have to wonder if we are even a people that can have community anymore. Yes, there were the “Helpers” as Mr. Rogers called them. There was the local page moderator that spent what seemed like 24 hours a day for 8 days providing information to the people, filtering out hateful comments and directing people towards support, and there was the mother who got her power on quickly but decided to cook enough food to feed 200+ people for days. My sons’ best friends’ adults lent us their generator and allowed my son to stay at their home while we did not have power. There are others who delivered food and checked on neighbors but did so quietly and without self-promotion but there was a general lack of that sense of community, especially after power started coming on.

It seemed as if people just forgot about everything once their power came on. They were upset about the loss of food, lack of supplies etc., but they were no longer in the trenches. It took three to four days before food, water, and ice distribution started in our area, longer in other areas. Hurricanes are somewhat predicable, we have hurricane season, we have a good idea about the path. Why did it take so long for governments to get things in order? I did say maybe a little about politics. Why was the government so unprepared for boots on the ground action and why was there such a lack of transparency?

Disasters like this always affect lower socioeconomic areas hardest. I saw two replies repeatedly during this catastrophe, we did not have power for two weeks with Ike and You should have bought a generator. Helpful remarks, aren’t they? It costs a thousand (ish) dollars for a generator and forty dollars (depending on the type) a day to run it. People cannot afford their basic survival needs right now and someone thinks they can afford a generator. We could not even find gas without waiting hours in line for the first few days. We were very fortunate to be familiar with cooking over a fire with cast iron, so we were able to cook for our family and neighbors, but I don’t know what others their food once spoiled. I know some went to fast food restaurants that did not lose power, those lines were hours long as well which equates to more gas costs and gas usage when gas is hard to come by. It is expensive to be poor and unprepared.

 Yes, I agree people could and should be better prepared but how? How do you prepare to be without everything in 90+ deg temps for days when you have no money to prepare with?  I do not think anyone expected eight days. It is hard to be forgotten, and that’s what people felt like. It’s an election year so naturally events like hurricane disaster relief turned into political fodder but the bigger problem was that people were forgotten. That is why a sense of community during these crises is necessary. Politicians forget people are involved but neighbors see and experience the same thing. When power was restored, people went back to their lives and forgot their neighbors were still in the thick of it. The sense of community was lost, and people were forgotten not just by politicians but by their neighbors as well.

We survived Beryl. Our family is intact. We played countless rounds of rummy and learned to stock charcoal and towels. But this hurricane will go down in history and its toll remains to be seen.