Hurricanes

Waiting for What Doesn’t Come or Thoughts on a Hurricane

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The Edge of Dorian

So we will take a break from the regularly scheduled programming – that is, the wrap of the Balkans trek – for some brief ruminations on hurricanes and circularity. No summits this time; this is life in the swamp in hurricane season.

Like everyone else in Florida I celebrated Labor Day weekend by obsessing over the weather as we waited for Hurricane Dorian (still not sure if that was meant to be a male or female Dorian) to come barreling across the Caribbean aimed straight at Florida. Unfortunately I also had to spend large portions of said weekend in a conference room for work, but that’s another story. And at least it served as a distraction from my hourly checks of the advisories from the hurricane center. Did you know that not only are there full advisories at 5 am, 11 am, 5 pm, and 11 pm, and some intermediate ones as well – but there is even an hourly “public advisory” on the official NHC website? When your safari search pages are keyed to nothing but weather sites you learn these things.

In any event, at a certain point we were informed that the hurricane was supposed to make a sharp right angle turn that would take if off course for Florida and hopefully shoot it out into the ocean. J and I did a modicum of hurricane preparation – mostly moving the porch furniture, cleaning out half of the garage so one car could fit, and taking the other off to a safe parking facility. Our neighbors, however, boarded up all their windows well before any possible hurricane arrival and must have been living in what could only be described as a dungeon for almost a week.

In the meantime we waited. And we waited. And we waited on some more for that sharp right turn.

As everyone knows by now, Dorian unfortunately decided to take a rest stop over the Bahamas, wreaking utter devastation. I must admit I feel survivors’ guilt. Florida was so much better equipped to handle this storm it seems unconscionable that Dorian selected the Bahamas instead, making Bahamas’ loss Florida’s gain….but it certainly seems that’s what happened.

Because eventually the right hand turn came. Many offices (not mine!) were risking nothing and closed on Tuesday…which ended up being a fairly decent day with only a couple of rain showers. Ironically most offices re-opened on Wednesday- despite the fact that the weather was worse – although nothing that even compared to a summer thunderstorm in Florida with straightline winds.

By then I had programmed my body to wake up at 2 am and 5 am to make sure I was on top of the latest briefings. Based on Facebook traffic I don’t think I was the only one doing just that.

Finally Thursday dawned and it was just another day. I realized I’d lost about an entire week of news and had actually managed to stop checking Twitter to see just what horrors were being posted by our Tweeter-in-chief. And I had no idea what was happening with Brexit. The news blackout was distinctly refreshing.

Driving off to work on Thursday – here’s the circularity part – I ran into a road closure right around the lake. Now you’ve probably heard me complain about the never ending drainage project that has been going on for a year, large parts of it in front of my house. But they had started to the right of our house and were moving left and it finally looked as though they were almost done. But now they were BACK on the right, albeit a little further down. Why? Why wouldn’t you start at the beginning and go one direction? And now we get more road closures? Try explaining them to an Uber driver.

So, we seem to be back to square one on drainage. Hopefully they won’t decide they are going to redo all that they did for the sake of continuing in that lefterly direction. But in the grand scheme of things, I guess I’m glad life has circled back to its regular plodding routine. We should all be so lucky. Let’s all give some money to the Bahamas.

Post Dorian from the Y parking lot

Traveling in Style on a Greyhound Bus as a Hurricane Approaches

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FromSwampToSummit has one of those rare treats this week – a guest blogger! But not just any guest blogger – someone who’s been one of my mother’s closest friends for over 60 years….and made her way to North Carolina from New Mills, near Manchester, England, just as Hurricane Florence approached. Her adventure involved a boutique hotel in Washington DC, a Greyhound bus, and a truck stop. Now in her eighth decade, M has had many occupations, from working in journalism to teaching. There are both swamps and summits here! Bracketed commentary is mine.

It’s a long way from the North of England to North Carolina
Here I am back in England and ready at last to give you the story as promised of my over-eventful trip to visit M and E [my parents].
The plan was a flight from England to Washington D..C., two nights in a hotel and a train to Durham N.C. The first hiccup was when Amtrak cancelled my train, but that was O.K., I booked a Greyhound bus. [My brother T was horrified at this thought and offered to drive to DC to rescue M from the potential dangers of a Greyhound bus. Being more naive, I just thought it was a cool idea.] I also heard that there was a hurricane around, but not to worry.
I arrived at my hotel in D.C. – an interesting old building called The Architect – at 7 p.m. on Tuesday the 11th. I phoned M and was told the hurricane was about to hit and I must get out of Washington on an earlier bus. My phone wouldn’t work so the helpful young man on Reception got me a taxi and I went to find the Greyhound bus station. The Greyhound office is two floors up in what seems like the roof space above Union Station, a great dark cavern of a place with a small glassed-in office in one far corner. The only earlier bus was at 11.30 p.m. the following day and I had to change at Richmond, Va., so I booked it.
Back at my hotel I started to get a series of messages, from my neighbour at home I – you must come back to England, a hurricane is coming; from M that it was not safe travelling on a bus at night; yet another message from I that I must stay in Washington because the hurricane was going to hit Durham; then again from M saying I must sit near the bus driver. So after all that I went to bed and slept quite well.
The next day was hot and humid, the sun beating down, fairly normal D.C. weather I think, though I found it exhausting. I had a walk about, not easy to find something to eat though eventually I found a few restaurants near Dupont Circle. I made sure I had breakfast and some lunch. I wandered down to the White House and back. Back at the hotel I had a shower, packed my bag again, and checked out of the hotel about 9 p.m., my helpful young man downstairs getting me a taxi again.
At Union Station I ate a slice of pizza on the main floor of the station, before going up to the great shed above where in the dark corner was a lit-up glass waiting room. I was about to go to the rest room before boarding at 11.10 when I looked up at a clock and found it was already 11.10 and my watch had stopped.
This whole journey was a chapter of accidents and miracles. I got on the bus, I had a seat to myself though not near the driver [as my mother, no doubt at my brother’s urging, had encouraged], and off we went into the dark still night, no sign of a hurricane yet.
At Richmond it was a proper bus station, a big hall with a cafe and toilets at one end and a desk at the other. I sat down and looked up at an indicator, which said that the Atlanta bus – my bus – was cancelled. I went to the desk where a very large man with dreadlocks was impassively fending off a crowd of chattering people. I found it difficult to understand his very strong accent but he seemed to say that the bus was not cancelled but it would not stop in Durham, my destination.
There was a young girl who I had noticed in the bus queue at Washington; she stood out because she was blonde and pretty, looked like a student.
She told me the bus was stopping at Greensboro and that was not too far from Durham.
I sat down again.
There kept being announcements which I could not understand, but then I found the bus was not stopping till Charlotte. I was miles from anywhere in the middle of the night, Richmond was unknown to me and I couldn’t go back to Washington, so I got on the bus. I only managed to do that because the young girl saw me sitting and came to tell  me a line was forming at the other end for the Charlotte bus. She was another of the miracles that happened to me that night. And I was lucky with the bus driver who was a helpful young man whose accent I could understand. I sat at the front of the bus this time.
Off we went into the dark again. I slept a bit and whenever I woke I saw a dry empty road stretching ahead between a wall of unmoving trees and I wondered where the hurricane was. Then I woke and began to see words I could recognise – Raleigh-Durham Airport one mile, Chapel Hill, then even Durham. And on the bus went. A woman passenger came to front and spoke to the driver. He said he was looking for a rest stop, so she got out her phone and directed him to one. We stopped at a gas station with a shop, and we all got off and went in to use the toilet. I saw that the young girl was getting her bag off the bus and she said we were not far from Durham. So I asked the driver to get my suitcase off too. He wrote down for me on a piece of paper:
Exit 165 off I-85 BP Station County Road.
The girl lent me her phone. I rang M [my mother] and read out the direction. It was 5.30 in the morning. The girl was going to Greensboro to a wedding but the friend she phoned was still in bed and did not answer. So we stood there outside the gas station as the odd car and truck pulled up and went away. A woman came up and asked if we were stranded and  could she help. I hope she stayed with the girl because I felt bad leaving her when she had been a lifesaver for me. The next car that came up had familiar figures in it and M got out. I nearly wept on her shoulder, I was so glad to see her.
It was not far to drive. When we crossed the Eno River I realised how close I had been to safety. Very soon we were sitting down having breakfast. We spent a few days waiting for Hurricane Florence but she did not trouble us much.
Sorry this has been a so long. I got a bit carried away remembering it all.
[Should we all have such adventures when we make it to our 80s!]
And back in England, At long last.

Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Surge, Oh My

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I wanted to start posting about our next summit plan – which is still in a nascent stage – but events in my home state of Florida have preempted that.  We were here for Charlie’s visit in 2004, followed by his pals, Jeanne, Frances, and Ivan Jr. Last year, Matthew decided to call, but he was shy and hugged the coast, never getting up the nerve to come in.

Not so with Irma. One of the stylists at the salon where I got my hair cut the Saturday before the storm (if one is going to go, go out in style) described Irma as a “mean old church lady – the type who stands at the door and makes you spit out your gum.” They were actually boarding up the windows as the last snips were being taken on their clients’ hair.

Well, Irma certainly displayed those characteristics and more. My office closed after work Thursday and remained closed through Tuesday. This was all to allow lawyers and staff to engage in that great Florida tradition of preparing for the storm, living through the storm, and then undoing all the preparations you’ve made. For those of you newbies to hurricane land, this involves things like: Moving all the porch furniture in. We lined our 4 front porch rocking chairs up in front of the front windows – a little slice of porch in the living room. Carrying the canoe from a far corner of the yard and balancing it atop two ladders in the garage where it presently hangs over all the other junk we store in the garage. Bringing at least 25 potted plants inside for temporary shelter in the home office. You get the picture. And let’s not forget making ice and worrying about all the frozen food you just bought at Trader Joe’s.

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After days of anticipation the stress level here in Orlando was so thick it could be cut with a knife. And Saturday into Sunday no one could believe it when Charlie’s story repeated itself and Irma decided she wasn’t interested in the Gulf Coast vibe of Tampa and instead would go due north, making almost a beeline for an area just west of Orlando. I awakened about 4 am or so, having heard wind howling and trees crashing for hours. Based on Facebook posts, more people were awake than asleep the entire night.

The wind lasted well into Monday.

We fared well. Believe it or not, we did not lose power. We either paid our dues during our 8 day loss with Charlie and karma was with us this time – or the replacement poles and wires were stronger. We do have a tabebuia tree leaning 30 degrees toward our house and no tree people anywhere in sight to help. And portions of fence are down with not a single 4×4 fencepost to be found. The neighborhood lost multiple hundred plus year old live oaks. But compared to those who still don’t have electricity or whose houses were wrecked by flooding – we were very lucky.

We have just planned a last minute spur of the moment trip to visit daughter A and boyfriend N in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I’m looking forward to some hurricaneless weather. Oh, wait, there’s another guy possibly looking for a place to stay in the Northeast. His name is Hurricane Jose.