Ten days ago, I was thinking about an entirely different story for today’s post, when my husband and I realized that the hurricane in the Gulf would not curve left or right as they sometimes do. At some level, it was going to hit the entire state of Florida.
I will clarify that we do not live on the west coast, but have family in Pinellas County (Clearwater area.) They live only a couple of miles from the coast and they were looking at a direct hit. We live on the east coast of the state, and expected a weakened storm. We never suspected the power of the storm to reach us in the way that it did.
It was Wednesday afternoon. Milton hadn’t even come onshore yet when my phone alerted me to a tornado warning. I switched from my movie (to distract myself) to watch the local news, and it was worrying. Yes, there was a tornado south and slightly west of us. But as I watched the two meteorologists tag-team this breaking weather news, another box popped up on the map, and another, and another. Soon, there were 11 tornado warnings moving from south to north and west. The meteorologists looked stunned.
The tornadoes were embedded in the first wave of the outer bands of Hurricane Milton; its powerful arms reaching across the entire peninsula from the Gulf. Almost immediately, the winds took six lives in Fort Pierce. Those residents were ready for a hurricane (sustained high winds, rain, power outages) not a flash F3 tornado dropping from the sky in less than a minute taking their homes and lives; instantly.
I grew nervous watching the polygon boxes marching north. One got quite close to us, but fizzled, while another struck Cocoa Beach hard, just to the north of us. The meteorologists said that the tornadoes were “rain-wrapped” which meant people would not be able to see them. I looked out my windows again and again, anyway. Fear will often bury logic.
This is a still of the same coverage I watched. You can see some of the boxes:
And then, that night, Milton came onshore and hit our family by the Gulf. I’m sure you’ve seen that television coverage. Some of them had evacuated and the remaining family lost power. They received some damage, but it could have been much worse for them. They are O.K.
It moved towards us overnight. I woke at 4:30 a.m. to see if Milton was a Cat 2 or a 1. This seemed important. He was a 1. Good. At 5:00 a.m., the eye moved over Cape Canaveral where rockets lift-off almost weekly.
This is a short clip at 6:30 a.m. I’m trying to talk, but it’s hard to hear me.(The point was to hear the winds anyway.)
This one felt different. Milton had really gotten into my head. I suppose the constant news updates scared us into a hyper state of worry. We prepped, working on hurricane shutters and securing our patio, etc. Stores were crowded.
Unable to write, to read, I remained hyper vigilant, and that arc lasted about six days. From the prep, through the storm, through the clean-up. Even after he was long gone into the Atlantic, I would look at my laptop. No. The next day. No. I had no concentration to give.
And I know how lucky we were; the footage of storm surge and homes crashing up against one another south of Tampa is brutal. And let us not forget Ashville, North Carolina, from the biblical rains of Helene. One resident there said “it’s heartbreaking to see so much loss in such a beautiful place. It is now destroyed. It is never going to be the same.” The camera panned to washed away homes, roads and bridges.
My life was “disrupted”, but hers is devastated, literally, the geography of her town has changed forever. There just aren’t words for that.
A Florida resident who lost her home near Siesta Key spoke to a news reporter and said, “we’re strong, we’re salty and we’re not going anywhere.”
And that’s true. With the help of so many volunteers and government agencies, people will recover from Helene and Milton and rebuild. A few cynics might think it’s like Sisyphus and the boulder, and maybe it is, but it’s just our nature. We love our hometowns, neighborhoods, traditions, scenic views, families. That makes it worth it.
And speaking of nature, there’s no question that Mother Nature hit hard this year, but she also gives. Post-Milton, it’s been beautiful here. This cycle is completing, but there are always new cycles ahead.
Leavingthedooropen.com 
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