Hurricanes I Remember

I should be writing about Labor Day. I am still sentimental about a holiday that had great meaning in my lifetime. Now I'm not sure anymore what it means aside from a long weekend. Anyhow I can't resist writing about, you know what?

Yes, we have been up to our eyeballs with Hurricane Earl. Kate and I are exhausted. At the time it’s hard to realize how much stress is created by the anticipation. There was a fundamental difference in the Stage 5 1938 Hurricane that destroyed the city of Providence and Earl.

In 1938 I was 20 years old and working at Packard Motor Car. Sometime in the late morning the foreman says to me, “listen kid” that’s what they called me, “there’s a hurricane on its way here. Why don’t you grab a couple of batteries and some cans of ether and go make yourself some money starting up stalled cars.” I owned a 1929 Packard Touring car that had unusually large wheels that made it exceptional on flooded roads. That what I did and yes I ended up making over $20, bucks which back then was a lot of money.

My second Hurricane encounter was on Fire Island in the 1950s. We had bought a small “fixer upper”cottage that needed a lot more than fixing. It sat on Locust Posts as did most houses out there. In our first year of ownership I was determined to replace all of the 40-50 rapidly rotting posts holding the place up. It was September. Wife and kids left to go back to school. I had arranged to stay on for a few days and continue my post replacement project.

In replacing posts I would get under the house with a pressured hose. Pick a rotted post. Put the pressured hose into the sand and as the sand was washed away by the water remove the old post. Take a new one push it down into the wet sand until you got a solid lock under the house. It’s just plain hard physical labor. I had bought myself a nice steak and potatoes dinner for that night. That with a couple of Jim Beams and I was off to sleep.

I’m up early the next morning, half asleep I notice that I am surrounded by water. A Coast Guard motorized Dinghy comes by. He says,” what the hell you doing here?” Surprised, I say “I live here.” He says, “There was a Hurricane went through and the Island was evacuated.’ “Well I’m sorry but I was fast asleep and don’t know nothin about no evacuation.” He looks at me a little perplexed says, “okay I guess it don’t make no difference now that’s its over.”

The next one was Gloria, September 1985. It did a lot of damage out here mostly ripping off roofs. The major problem for most of the houses around where we live was loss of electricity. That resulted in these nightly cookouts in a nearby Park. As stuff defrosted folks would bring it to the Park for a community “Gloria feast.” Best community social activity I can remember.

Next was Hurricane Bob. Yupp, that was its name. Kate and I were visiting her parents in Kokato Minnesota. We had heard something on the radio about the approaching storm. I asked Kate’s father to turn to the Weather Channel. Back then it was not commercial. Just the weather. We both stood there aghast as the arrow pointed the Hurricane Bob right at our house. Kate’s mother, Esther packed us some sandwiches as we raced out of the house to catch the last flight out to LaGuardia. We arrived about midnight raced home to board up. by about 5-6 Am we were finished. Everything that could get airborne was put away and our 16 foot South facing glass wall boarded up. I said I was going to bed. Kate said not me I gotta see this, my first Hurricane. Bob never hit us it went 40 miles south.

What was so different with that 1938 huge storm that wrecked hundreds of houses all up and down the East coast, killed a couple thousand people, devastated the shoreline and yesterdays Hurricane Earl? Very simple. Back in 38 there was no television. Nobody even knew the storm was coming because the folks in the Carolinas or Maryland or Delaware didn’t bother to use the telephone to warn the people further up the coast that a deadly storm was on its way. When the hurricane hit the City phones began to ring and that’s how the manager at Packard sent his workforce home early.

Now with television we become aware of hurricanes from where they are born ,off the coast of Africa until they reach their final destination. I am not suggesting this is a bad. Not at all. My problem arises with the endless amount of sensationalized stuff coming over the television screens that can make you crazy by the time the storm itself arrives. I think it was Heidegger who suggested that all anxiety is in the anticipation.That is exactly what happened to Kate and I. After watching and listening we prepared to leave the Island. No we prepared to go to a shelter. No we prepared to put up the shutters. No, we finally agreed to do nothing.

So, what’s the problem here? All television Channels have a single interest. How to gain more viewers. This now includes PBS. They are all looking for increased Neilson Ratings. That’s how the commercial stations like “The Weather Channel” get their advertising. To keep us tuned they have to constantly come up with some brand new sensational information. At one point yesterday afternoon we got calls from different friends all very concerned for our safety, telling us to evacuate. They were getting their information from one of the many media outlets.

The lesson here is not that we just go about “posting your house” with a hurricane approaching. The lesson for people like us who live in vulnerable locations to learn and understand what is or is not a serious threat. So far we have been lucky. That doesn’t mean we will always be. But we will try to become more self informed regarding the risks.