I Survived My First Hurricane And All You Got Was This Lousy Post

Lessons From Charley:

The Lord shall provide.
I was scheduled to throw an Olympics Opening Ceremony Ripping Party on Friday that I was in no condition to hostess—mentally, physically, financially, or cleansfully—so God sent me a hurricane. Hey, thanks, God!

If the Catholic Church wants to recruit more members, all we have to do is conduct a hurricane.
Thursday afternoon was the first time in my life I have ever been freaked out by a supermarket. There were no carts. No. Carts. People had to resort to the cart scrap pile and were actually wheeling around those clunky baby-seat versions, chucking Meow Mix and boxes of Cheez-Its in the indentation where the baby is supposed to go. By this time there was not a C battery to be had from here to the Keys, and everybody was taking the perfectly sensible action of buying as much milk as they could lay a trembling hand on. Because when you’re expecting a power blackout, the first thing you want to do is stock up on the one product that will spoil after four seconds at room temperature.

Bottled water was plentiful. Not so much the Entenmann’s. As of 5 PM on Thursday, people had picked the Entenmann’s cart clean. You couldn’t get a crumb-filled cheese coffee cake unless sexual propositioning was involved. So, utter lack of clean potable water: Okay. Prospect of life without a ready supply of Brownie Pop-Ums? NEVER!

I enjoy this aspect of Florida: When we panic, we carbo-load.

Publix had helpfully arranged all hurricane kit necessities on a large table directly in front of the door, which of course meant that nine out of ten people kept grabbing passing deli clerks and photo processors, all, “WHERE ARE THE ZIPPO LIGHTERS?!”

In order to cover a lack of emergency candles, someone raided the--how shall I phrase this-- the ethnic food aisle and loaded the table with a vast array of tall, glass-sheathed votive candles, votive candles far more frightening than what I have ever experienced inside a lifetime’s worth of attendance in actual Catholic churches, votive candles featuring glowering Jesuses and irate, blood-spattered Virgin Marys glaring out at the universe. By the time I departed there was only a Jesus and a gory St. Jude left. When the world ends, it will depart lit by a holy card.

If I were ever stranded on a desert island, I would, very likely, die.
On Friday morning, the entirety of Central Florida began an Official Pre-Hurricane Spaz Attack. People tanked up, nailed in hurricane shutters, readied the tuna, and ran around like dipwads looking for generators. I, for my part, reported to work, checked the radar, reflected on the fact that I did not at the moment own a flashlight, grabbed my purse, and walked briskly to the main branch of the Orange County Public Library. Hurrrrrrrrrrricane a’comin’! Everybody, load up on The DaVinci Code!

I returned to the office twenty minutes later with a biography of Alan Shepard, yet another book consisting of nothing but 427 pages detailing just how much Clinton sucks, Harry Potter and the $29.99 Harry Potter Lego Set, and a Dick Francis novel, satisfied that I was now well guarded against whatever the sea and winds of hell could whip at me.

Even //// clouds have a silver lining.
Friday morning traffic was the lightest I’d ever seen it. Ever. A commute that normally takes at least half an hour was whipped through in about ten minutes. Oh—so that’s how long it’s supposed to take to drive four miles at eight in the morning. I move that we have a hurricane EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Community journalism, in times of dire emergency, will heavily contribute to public safety by continuing to suck.
Actual quote from a Friday morning newscast: “Local tourist attractions just released information concerning evacuation orders and possible early closing times. Should you head to the parks or hunker down for safety? We’ll let you know… AFTER THIS!” (cue Pizza Hut commercial)

If you ever suspect the Apocalypse is taking place, check to see if the Bear Country Jamboree is still in operation.
I will be honest with you: I wasn’t taking Charley with tremendous seriousness until the Earth officially began to collapse upon itself. Universal closed. Sea World closed. Disney closed. I started calling loved ones: “… and then I drove by Wal-Mart,” I sobbed, “and it was closed. Mommy, I’m scared.”

It may not be a terrifically good idea to conduct a job interview in a building currently under evacuation.
Acting under the authority of the Department of Why the Hell Not, at 9 AM on Friday I sneaked away on an extremely long trip to the bathroom to fax a resume to my Congressman to apply for a position as a press secretary. (Let’s all give me a big hand for productive use of company time.) And two hours later my cell phone rang, and I slammed my office door and grabbed it, and on the other end a person from Congressman Excellent Taste’s office said, “Do you have time for me to ask you a few questions?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said, opening an email from the office manager announcing the mayor’s evacuation of the entirety of downtown Orlando.

“We were very impressed by your resume, and—"

I leaned over my computer to check a radar scan depicting Charley approximately an inch and a half from the gates of the spinning teacups. “Really?”

Somebody started banging on my office door. “I’m wondering if we could schedule an interv-"

There was a crackle from the office intercom: “—all employees are ordered to leave the building as soon as—"

The voice in Washington paused. “What’s that?”

“Nothing. Listen, are you providing relocation assistance?”

You're never too old for snow days.
As the entire populace of a fifteen-story building poured into the parking garage, I pretty much skipped to my car. Municipal panic, screeching media, wild milk purchases, school closings: I have seen thee, and you are the snow day of my youth. Viva mandatory evacuation!

Hurricanes have a sick sense of humor.
The last time a hurricane of this magnitude swept up through the Gulf side, my father was in it. The year was 1960 and the hurricane was Donna, and my father, a medic in the Air Force, because he was young and the military can be—and I say this with the highest measure of respect—really stupid, was ordered travel bareheaded from his base to the hospital at pretty much the exact moment all the water was being sucked out of Tampa Bay.

Well, my hurricane was tough on me too, Dad. I went without a hair dryer for twelve hours.

Also: The former Beach Bachelorette Pad in Cape Canaveral was summarily evacuated, as was the entirety of Merritt Island, which among other things contains the Kennedy Space Center. Charley’s action by the time he reached this side of the state was described to me as “kinda breezy. We got a few twigs in our yard. That sucked.” Had I still lived at the Cape last Friday, I would have had to flee to one of my safe houses, all of which were all located in: Orlando.

When you look out the window and what you see makes you say “Oh shit,” Bad Things are going down.
My scariest Charley moment arrived before he did. Hurricanes (I have learned a lot about hurricanes over the past 72 hours) throw these things out in front of them called “feeder bands” which produce “severe bow echo radar signatures”, also known as “really f-----g scary tornadic thunderstorms.”

If there’s one thing we Midwestern farmers’ daughter fillies know, it’s a funnel cloud. I was on the phone with fellow Ohio native Flipper exchanging such hurricane-related pleasantries as “I still have phone service, do you?” “Yeah, I still have phone service, what about you?” when all of a sudden Flipper paused and said, “Here it comes,” and I retreated to my Biscayne roots by running immediately to the window (The residents of the cul-de-sac I grew up on, Biscayne Avenue, marked every single departure from the norm, including late mail delivery, by flinging open screen doors and standing on the front porch. My mother first discovered this phenomenon during the worst tornado the state has ever seen, when she heard the warning sirens, peeped out the window, and saw the entire neighborhood standing in the middle of the street, pointing at the sky. If nuclear holocost ever manifests itself, the mushroom cloud, on Biscayne Avenue, will not be regarded with horror but as an unsurpassed opportunity to bust out the video camera.)

The “it” Flipper was referring to turned out to be a huge-ass hammerhead cloud closing in at approximately 14,000 miles per hour. It did indeed look like a gigantic hammerhead shark, assuming that your basic hammerhead is greenish and pointy and has lightening bolts shooting out of it. I didn’t even need to hit the front porch to know this not the best thing to be happening; directly after I assigned the cloud its official “Oh shit” classification, I took a candle, Dick Francis, and my ass into the bathroom, where I slammed the door.

The bathroom: This is my tornado shelter. You’re supposed to move to an “interior room” in the event of a tornado, which tends to be a difficult task when one lives in a studio apartment that hangs in midair over an open staircase, but it was either that or the inside of the dryer.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the Weather Channel for scaring the holy hell out of my family, who heard that there had been a funnel touchdown at the Orlando International Airport, which is maybe two inches away from the Blonde Bachelorette Pad. Problematically, there was no touchdown, unless we define “touchdown” as “grown woman curling up in a ball against a toilet while promising God to never ever miss Mass again.”

The airport is not a hurricane shelter.
This was actually announced over the radio. The general populace is, granted, comprised largely of cretins, but I seriously want to know the whole thought process behind this: “We’re going to be experiencing some catastrophically high winds. I know, let’s drive to the nearest big glass-encased tower and plop ourselves right next to hundreds of gigantic metal tubes with knife-sharp wings!”

Hurricanes are windy.
Also kinda rainy.

The mass media is even more spectacularly moronic than originally thought.
Flipper and I have a new, stupid boyfriend. It’s this idiot from one of the local news affiliates, who traveled directly to the base of the landfall and marked the occasion by standing next to the Gulf of Mexico, attempting to hold off the hurricane with a wind monitor purchased on eBay for $1.95.

There was major concern with this wind monitor. The studio anchors would check the radar, and then the latest reports out of the National Weather Service, and then Cap'n Wind Monitor again. He'd hold this thing in the air as the camera drew sharp focus on the rain pounding into the lens: “FORTY-NINE MILES AN HOUR!! NO, WAIT, FIFTY! I THINK WE’VE DEFINTELY GOT A HURRICANE HERE, YOU GUYS!”

The in-studio meteorologist, at one point, at last showed evidence of at least one functioning brain cell and was all, “Um. How long are you planning to stay outside, Jeff?” This toolbox was standing by fairly a good-sized boat that had beached itself behind him and kept encroaching closer and closer as the water rose. “WE’RE VERY VERY WORRIED ABOUT THIS BOAT!” Scoop Asshat would yell, gesturing at the sharp metal mast pointing directly at him. ‘IF THE WIND PICKS THIS THING UP AND FLINGS IT AT US, WE COULD BE IN REALLY BIG TROUBLE!”

Cap'n Wind Monitor’s big finale came as he and the cameraman turned our attention on a badly blowing roof that was summarily ripped away to oblivion. Then: static.

The action was then immediately thrown back to one of the anchors, who said, “Well, you know, that looks very scary, but I’m sure Jeff knows what he’s doing. This is his third or forth hurricane.”

His third or fourth... okay. Standing around holding a powerful piece of electrical equipment in one hurricane is a mark of astronomical stupidity. Four is a level of asshattery I can’t even begin to address.

It is probably not a good idea to open a door while a hurricane is in progress.
Of course I did this. As a journalist I had to confirm that the hurricane was, in fact, windy. Also, it’s My First Hurricane!

It was also My First Chin Injury Sustained From a Door Slamming Inward. Yeah, we won’t be doing that the next time.

A little Yankee Candle goes a long Yankee way.
If you have a Yankee Candle, that’s good. If you have a whole bunch of Yankee Candles, that’s also good. If you have a whole bunch of Yankee Candles, and they all have different smells, and you light them all at once? That’s not so good.

In the event of an emergency, be sure to have a baby on hand.
My sister and her husband called at the worst part of the storm to chat. “Heeeeey!” they said brightly. “What are you up to?”

At the moment I happened to be kneeling on my bed so as to better view the sight of the entire world bending ninety degrees to the left.

“Oh,” I said, "not much."

“Which way is the wind blowing?” my sister asked.

I checked. “Left,” I said.

As I was well without power by that point, they began narrating the Opening Ceremonies I was so sadly missing. “Can you hear that? Bob Costas was talking about Oedipus!” See, you just can’t have yourself a decent sporting event without some serious enlightenment on classical mythology from an umbrella-holding puss.

“I think the SUV next door just blew over,” I said.

“Ireland is wearing pinstriped suits! With hats!”

“Mhaaaaaahhhhhhh!” Jim The Baby Nephew added in the background, which was doubtless more intelligent than anything Katie Couric was saying at the moment.

Also Britton took it upon himself to administer some big-brotherly Hurricane Advice. “Crack a window a quarter inch,” he directed. Which I would kind of classify under the category of “It is probably not a good idea to open a door while a hurricane is in progress,” but I gave him a pass because at the moment he was also attempting to prevent the baby from eating the phone.

Doing It Doggie-Style Is Not Necessarily a Bad Thing
We used to have neighbors with a dog named Murphy. Murphy was extremely hairy. Murphy was, in fact, basically a large walking ball of wool, and he used weather the entirely of the summer months by occupying the bathroom floor, lying on the linoleum and panting and in general just looking pissy.

Murphy may have been on to something. I passed all of Saturday without power, a Saturday when the low in Orlando was approximately eight thousand degrees Celsius, and when another band of tornados passed through I had to close all the windows, so I lay there full-length on the bathroom floor with about ninety flickering candles and the Dick Francis book (not to give anything away, but it was about an ex-jockey who solved a Very Perplexing Mystery) and I was happy.

Sterno Kicks Ass
I did. I bought a pack of Sterno, more out of curiosity than anything else. What is this “Sterno” of which they speak, with its can of tin and gel of fire?

Then I stood there in the aisle pondering its many uses and also bought a bag of marshmallows. Not telling you exactly what when on there in the dark of my kitchen as Charley howled around me, but it involved graham crackers and it involved chocolate and the outcome was most satisfying.

COMING TOMORROW, OR POSSIBLY THE DAY OR WEEK AFTER THAT: Charley Aftermath Fever! Catch it!

(I want to thank all of you for leaving such kind and solicitious comments at the last post. You Florida readers out there, please comment or email blondechampagne@hotmail.com to let me know you're okay. I care about you. Primarily because I care about having people alive to boost my readership. It is, as always, all about priorities with me.)