I was wearing my trusty Columbia rain jacket. The sound of the rain on the hood was nearly deafening. I reached up to tie the drawstrings, but the wind snatched the beaded strand from my hand and smashed the bead into my tooth.
My head arched back in pain. This allowed the relentless wind to catch the hood and yank it violently off my head. Lateral rain immediately pelted my face, stinging like sleet, but I was in Florida. There’s no sleet in Florida.
I was in knee-deep water. Angry clouds whirled overhead. Broken branches and random debris filled the air. A cacophony of sirens, exploding transformers, and howling wind echoed off the low, tumultuous cloud layer. I could taste a little blood in my mouth from the drawstring hitting my gums, and the sheer absurdity of being outside as a Category 3 hurricane made landfall was not lost on me.
Milton is entirely too gentlemanly a name for a hurricane that tried to remove my family from the earth.
Ultimately, I fought a dozen tiny battles with Hurricane Milton. I’m proud to say that, despite not being the most handy fella, I was victorious. Sadly, we lost our tallest tree. A beautiful, healthy Live Oak, towering well over 40 feet. Lying on the ground, it was still taller than my neighbor’s house. When the mighty oak toppled, it took a few of my water pipes with it, flooding my driveway and threatening my garage. That’s why I ended up outside in the thick of it.
The house, although without power or water, emerged unscathed. While the overturned oak stump has left a scar in my front yard (and even the road – oopsie), the real scars are within.
Voluntary evacuation not an easy decision
Why didn’t I evacuate my three kids? Good question. I found myself asking as the apocalypse raged just outside our 40-year-old, non-hurricane-proof windows.
The wind finally died down around 2 a.m. or so. I was watching the movie Sabrina (the black and white, old-school version) on my wife’s laptop. It was supposed to be The Karate Kid. My wife assured me she had downloaded my favorite movie. She hadn’t. This was perhaps the most damaging blow I experienced during the storm. The kids were asleep. My heart rate had finally settled. It had been a long seven hours of scary wind, and an even longer several days of preparation and planning.
It was over.
I know. I know. Get to the, “Why didn’t you evacuate,” part.
If you haven’t been through a hurricane, it’s easy to view the evacuation decision as binary: storm — bad, leaving — good. It’s truly way more complicated than that. My wife and I made decisions, had an evacuation plan, had a hotel room booked several hours away, but by the time the storm did a last-minute, pain-in-the-ass wobble, we were stuck. There wasn’t much choice. Just 10 to 12 hours earlier, we were outside the cone of uncertainty, and it looked like we would just have a rainy day. Man, that didn’t happen.
I’ll never forget my 9-year-old daughter, crying in the dark, “Daddy, why didn’t we go to the hotel?”
I have some full-on apocalyptic reasons for staying. A car full of supplies and kids is a rather soft target. A house is a hard target I can defend. That’s a little dark, but that was one of my reasons.
Another reason to stay is to be able to control as many variables as possible. At home, I know what I have. I know my supplies. I know my neighbors. I have my tools, etc. Once you leave, you deal with the most terrifying variable of all: panicked humans. Honestly, I’d much rather tangle with the hurricane.
We also aren’t in danger of storm surge or flash flooding. If we were, I would’ve been sipping maple syrup somewhere in Canada. No way I’m rolling the dice with water. Ironically, we almost flooded because of a burst pipe. Had I not been here to battle the water, our garage would’ve flooded, and possibly even the rest of the house. It was dicey there for a while.
Mostly prepared for hurricane
This was a good test of my disaster preparation. I was happy with some of it, but Milton exposed some gaps, which I’m grateful to have discovered. Considering we could drive 20 minutes north and have power and water, this really wasn’t the most dire experience, but seeing the ripple effects of no gas and empty grocery shelves in the area was a solid reminder of how fast things go sideways.
I was prepared for all that. The major thing I missed was the immense pressure of having three tiny humans, who have blind faith in me, trusting me to make the best decisions. It was up to me to keep them alive. It was up to me to have food and water. It was up to me to keep what we had protected. As a veteran of at least a dozen hurricanes, this burden was much heavier than I had previously experienced. The kids changed everything.
As parents, we don’t have the luxury of winging it. Sure, most of the time it’ll be fine. You’ll have what you need when you need it. A little slip-up is not a major deal, but life can happen fast. Really, really fast. I’d encourage any parent reading this to take some time, real, thoughtful time, ensuring you’re ready for life going sideways. Check your water supply. Check your food rations. Have batteries. Candles. Download movies on the kid’s tablets (double check on The Karate Kid for yourself). Whatever the disaster preparation is in your area, take it seriously. Stop winging it.
I promise you don’t want to ever hear a sobbing kid questioning your choices during an actual disaster. The feeling of failure will never leave you. Take some time to be prepared.
Start with the bourbon. Oh, and rum. Rum’s great in a hurricane.
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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.
Photo by George Desipris via Pexels.
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