Taking Hurricanes Seriously in Florida

It's ironic that I am writing this on the three-year anniversary of when Hurricane Charley hit and cut off our area from civilization for almost five days. I live in Sebring, FL, about 60 miles south east of Tampa and about 150 miles northwest of Miami. Being in the center of the state, we are considered a safe place to evacuate to when a hurricane is bearing down on the coast. In previous years, I would email our friends in Tampa and St. Pete, and invite them over to a hurricane party until the storm had passed. In fact, on August 12^th, 2004, the party invitations, proposed menu, and the all-important drink recipes were flying over the Internet to our various friends on the west coast.

This attitude irrevocably changed on Friday, August 13^th, 2004. Hurricane Charley was forecast to hit the Tampa/St. Pete area, but made the infamous wobble and headed instead for Charlotte County. The hurricane made landfall in Punta Gorda, FL, but the first to feel the 150 mile per hour winds were the residents of Captiva Island, who were largely caught off-guard.

Next, the storm cut like a buzz-saw through the inland counties of Desoto and Hardee. All of the Tampa television channels except for one suspended coverage of the storm. Chief Meteorologist Steve Jerve gave a minute-by-minute description of the storm as it passed through Punta Gorda and Arcadia, and then headed north, towards Sebring. State Route 17 appeared on my television screen engulfed in vivid patterns of red and purple, indicating severe weather. I sat in front of the TV with my eyes glued to the map, praying aloud: Stay west of 17! Stay west of 17! Hurricane Charley did stay west of US 17, and did not hit Sebring directly. I watched the storm track northwards to become parallel with the town of Avon Park, the next town north of us along US Highway 27. Then, Steve Jerve's concerned face and words of caution vanished. The electricity went out. Little did we know that it would not be coming back on for five days, leaving us without running water as well as power, since our house is on a well. Also, neither the regular telephone nor my cell phone was in service, and we were expecting our first grandchild 1200 miles away in Pennsylvania any day.

The storm was over in the evening, and we ventured out while it was still daylight to our local Albertson's supermarket, and navigated the familiar aisles in the semi-darkness, looking for batteries, flashlights, candles, and bottled water. We got some of the last supplies that we had left. As we left the store, we saw a long convoy of trucks containing National Guard troops and Progress Energy workers, who would work on restoring our electric. The people gathered outside the store cheered, and thought surely that our power would be back on the next day. Little did we know the extent of the damage to the grid that Hurricane Charley had wrought.

Thus began a five-day ordeal that I refer to as Survival Sebring! The next day, we drove to my husband's workplace, a large call center, to check and see if he should report to work tomorrow. Since there were no utilities, the supervisors were milling about outside, sending workers home and answering questions. My husband was told to report to work the next day, and they would see whether they had electricity and phone service restored. After we had spoken to my husband's boss, I said Come on; let's go out and eat breakfast somewhere! Little did I know that there was no breakfast to be had at any restaurant within a 30 mile radius. We tried all the places where we normally eat- all were closed up tight, some with damage to the building. We finally ended up at Publix supermarket in Lake Placid, about 15 miles south. All of the perishable foods- meats, dairy items, deli foods, frozen foods, had been thrown away, and the refrigerated sections that usually held them were covered over by tarps. We managed to buy some muffins, some boxes of dry cereal, three gallons of tea, and some bread.

This would be our sustenance for the next 3 days, along with a roast beef sub from the one deli in town that had managed to save its food supply, and had reopened using a generator to power the food slicer and cooking equipment. We also stopped at Home Depot and were greeted by a line of people that extended out the door and down the block. Natural disasters being the great equalizers that they are, nobody was unscathed. Some of the town's most prominent doctors and lawyers were in that same line with the people who pick oranges and do other manual labor. Generators and bar-be-que grills were flying off the shelves. We bought a small charcoal grill, but the generators were out of our price range. Communication was also a problem. Along with the phone lines being down for five days, we were unable to get television or radio broadcasts from the major cities. There was only one radio station operational, a local country music station, with information from the county health department and civil defense. It was through that station that we learned that it could be weeks, not days, before our electricity was restored, as the entire grid for our area was located directly in the path of the hurricane and had to be totally rebuilt, and not just repaired!

By Tuesday, we had run out of food, as everything that was in our refrigerator was not safe to eat. The Salvation Army had set up a station to give out hot meals, and I gave a donation in return. MCI had set up a trailer to enable people to make long distance calls to family and friends, and I tracked down my daughter-in-law's family and let them know that we were OK, and found that our grandson had not yet been born.

Four days of living and working in the hot August weather without air conditioning or even a fan for relief had taken a toll on my husband. We drove to find a motel room in the pouring rain. That adventure was literally the story of No Room at the Inn, as we stopped at eleven motels between Sebring and Tampa, only to find them filled with utility workers, insurance adjusters, and the unfortunate people who had lost their homes. I remember yelling at one clerk to at least put the No Vacancy sign on! Turning back and returning home was out of the question, because Sebring was still under martial law, and nobody, homeowner or not, was allowed in or out of town after 9 PM, unless you worked at a hospital or a fire or police station that was located outside of the county. So, we had to find a motel. Finally, we made it to downtown Tampa, about 60 miles from home. I watched my husband go in to the hotel lobby, speak to the desk clerk, saw his body sag, and then saw him reach for his wallet. I ran inside, asked if they had a room, and when the clerk said that indeed they did, I just broke down and cried right there in the lobby. We thoroughly enjoyed the first showers with hot water and soap that we'd had in a week, sleeping in the air conditioning and walking across the street the next morning to a hot protein-rich breakfast, instead of cold cereal out of a box washed down with warm tea.

We returned home late the next morning to a miraculous and welcome sound- the sound of our air conditioning running again! Our power, running water, and telephone had been restored. We were grateful that our house, especially the roof, had not been damaged by the storm, and that our pets were all OK. We shook hands with the Progress Energy workers, many of whom had been working around the clock, brought in from other states to supplement the Florida workforce. It didn't matter that they were complete strangers. They were heroes to us!

Later that year, we were visited by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. Frances was supposed to have been a horrible storm, but lost its punch by the time it reached us and became a long windy rain storm instead. However, Jeanne, which was supposed to track 50 miles north of us, came straight at us with winds of almost 100 miles an hour by the time it reached Highlands County. Again, we were a direct hit, but we were better prepared, with water, batteries, and a place of safety where I spent some anxious early morning hours listening to the radio broadcast the track of the storm. About 5 AM on Sunday morning September 26^th, 2004, the eye passed over Sebring, at which time I fell asleep.

We can take away many lessons from the ordeals of the 2004 Hurricane Season. I can sum those lessons up by saying be prepared for the unexpected. We who live in Florida's interior thought we lived in a place safe from a hurricane's touch. That may have been true in the 1980's, but that is no longer valid, especially with the sheer size and strength of the storms that we get today. Also, the projected track of a hurricane is just that- a projection, an educated guess. A steering current could come out of nowhere and direct the storm hundreds of miles outside of that projected track.

Our household has plywood ready, cut into certain sizes for each window, and labeled as to which window it fits over. The plywood goes up 24 hours before the hurricane is expected to strike. Any objects that are in the back yard that could potentially become flying missiles in 100mph winds get put into the garage. We have batteries for all the flashlights and the radio on hand, purchasing them months before hurricane season strikes. We have designated a small back bedroom that my husband uses as his office as our place of safety during storms, as it is away from the more vulnerable front of the house and has no windows that could break during a storm.

We make sure to have plenty of cash on hand days ahead of the storm, as there may not be electricity for the ATMs or credit/debit card machines later. We don't wait for the last minute to fill our gas tanks, either, but start getting gas days before the storm, avoiding long lines and last-minute panic and the very real possibility that the supply will run out.

We don't keep our freezer full of frozen foods during the summer, or fill our refrigerator with milk, meat, eggs and cheese. During hurricane season, we buy these items as we need them, no more than a week in advance. We have plenty of non-perishable foods such as rice and beans that can be prepared easily just by boiling water. We also have a small grill and keep lots of charcoal on hand to cook any meat that is in our refrigerator after the storm- better to cook it and eat it before it goes bad than to waste the food! Fortunately, we have not had to evacuate our home, but if we did, we have multiple escape routes planned, since the interstates will turn into parking lots. My son has graciously offered his home in the Pocono Mountains as a refuge, should our home be destroyed. We have pet carriers ready for all of our animals, should we need to make a quick getaway.

As I end this story, we are anxiously watching the approach of Hurricane Dean. Although it's not forecast to bother Florida, from experience we know that it could change course at any time and come visit us!