Our History with Irma

by

We  have gone through hurricanes. They are nothing new to us. When we lived in Louisiana, we were flooded out twice by tropical storms, and know about the hydraulics of heavy rains.  We evacuated once when a storm was heading right for Slidell and returned the next day, right through the teeth of category one winds as we returned from Jackson, MS. Our house in Slidell did not look the worse for wear. Something about a dry wedge.

When we moved to Florida to take care of my wife Ann’s mother, we had just moved into a new home when Hurricane Charlie took a turn up Charlotte Harbor and ripped up Punta Gorda to our south and devastated much of Port Charlotte. Our house was (and still is) protected by two huge live oak trees and a block long tree lot across the street. The winds were forced up by the trees and over our house at 140 mph but only took a few shingles and a piece of fascia.  The force of the wind was enough to push fragments of leaves through a screened-in front porch, under our front door, and into the front hall. And an old branch broke off in the wind and took off a corner of the roof of the house next door.  

The days that followed were not fun at all. We had no power or air conditioning. We rolled up the storm shutters and opened all the windows to get cross ventilation but the temperatures got up to 92 in the house each day. We had water but only at half pressure. We drank and cooked on a camp stove with bottled water but by adding bleach to the sink water, cleaned with it.  We were lucky to have grocery stores with generators and Walmart was able to accept our credit card.  Walmart was generous with ice and bottled water. Red Cross came around a few days after the storm ended and provided a meal a day. They stopped long before we got power back. We had no landline telephone. Ann’s cell phone could get no bars but mine could, for some reason. I was able to contact family and friends to reassure them of our well-being. One local United Methodist Church provided ice for free when they had it (by truckloads) and another became the center for United Methodist Committee on Relief efforts, housing volunteers from all over the United States.  It was great to watch the Church in action bringing relief aid.

Driving around town was a problem. We did not have a storm surge or unusual rains but with the power out, there were no traffic lights. The morning after the storm, a van collided with a car at a main intersection and four of the six who died as a result of the storm were killed.  One had died of a heart attack and another had been struck by flying debris during the storm while trying to go next door to help a neighbor.

Our neighbors were very helpful and brought us food occasionally from their church. We worked together clearing a small tree that blocked our street.  

So we had a pretty good idea what a storm like Irma could do. A friend up north who had warned us when Charlie took its turn into Charlotte Harbor in 2004 called us on Tuesday, Sept. 5, and told us to evacuate. We had watched the “spaghetti” lines of the various forecasts had lined up onto the west side of Florida, right through our county. My rule of thumb, if the storm is Category 3 or higher, is to evacuate five days before landfall. So we began packing up the car, gathered critical papers, closed the storm shutters, left lights on in each room to minimize mold, and left. Our stop for the night was a little north of Tampa. We found the interstate was quite busy with others heading north and figured we’d get a good night’s rest and leave early in the morning before traffic density got too bad. Ann called ahead and we got reservations at a motel in Monteagle, TN. By Monteagle, I thought most evacuees would have stopped to ride out the storm in relative safety. We were headed for Milwaukee to stay at our daughter’s until it was safe to return.  

We left before sun up the next morning and the roads were amazingly clear of heavy traffic.  We made it to Monteagle about dark with no problems getting gas or lining up our next two night’s motels.  

After getting to Milwaukee, we recuperated among the rescue pets and football games on TV for the weekend. During breaks, we watched weather and news channels about the progress of the storm. On Sunday night, I noticed a change in the radar image of the storm. Suddenly, the lower half of it disappeared. The heavy rains stayed to the north but otherwise stayed only in the feeder bands fifty to two hundred miles in either direction. Right over Port Charlotte, a dry wedge had appeared.

Huge storms pull air from their northwest into their circulation. Back in Slidell, that air mass had been dry and it cut the power of the storm from which we had evacuated, and spared Slidell from a major hit. The same thing happened over Port Charlotte this time. The rains had been very heavy up to that point. The winds were diminished and dropped from a Category 5 to a 2 in just a couple hours.  

Word of friends came back that our house was intact, that there was some power nearby, and that at least two gas stations were operating in Port Charlotte.  

We waited until it was likely that our house had power and started back home, again calling ahead by at least a day and getting rooms as we needed.

We had no trouble getting gasoline nor motel rooms on the trip south.

When we pulled in twelve days after leaving, we found our house had lost power for only enough to melt a little of our frozen yogurt. We replaced our milk, orange juice, and a couple other little things.  We found the wind had not blown anything in under the door. There may be a minor leak in the roof and there was a lot of litter on the roof and in our yard. The tree had lost a lot of leaves but no branches and the neighbor’s house was also unharmed.

Our neighbor was of immense help in clearing the roof and cleaning up our yard. I did what I could to help. The pile of brush from our two properties is about six feet high and about twelve feet long. Yet looking at the trees and yards, hardly anything seems changed!

I have not heard about the Red Cross nor other relief agencies dealing with my county. There also has not been much about United Methodist Committee on Relief here, though a retired clergy friend from Wisconsin has traveled to Fort Myers on their behalf forty miles south of us.  There is need here mostly for cleanup and some damage in our county.  But the overwhelming need is in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Houston, and many places in Florida and the southeast. I’m glad to have United Methodist Committee on Relief which uses 100 percent of every gift to it for relief. That’s because we cover administrative costs through apportionments paid for by Sunday offerings. And UMCOR stays on the job for months and even years on a tragedy, long after other relief agencies have left. That’s where my donations are going.  

Storms are very strange. You never know what will be harmed and what will be saved. Many years ago, we served two little churches in north Texas. The stories there were of tornadoes.  In one storm, the only buildings not damaged were the Methodist Church and its parsonage across the street. That was in 1928. They never built a storm cellar for that parsonage like they did for every other home in the region. One family told stories about their experiences. One they told was about a Friday night when a storm came through. They got out of their storm cellar to find their house gone. All that was left was the floor, the kitchen table, and the father’s paycheck he had brought home.

No equivalent of a paycheck on our table, just all our tables and chairs in the right place! And despite the heavy rains, no water incursion into the house except a possible minor roof leak.

It sounds almost like we shouldn’t have bothered to evacuate. But we would do it again. I do not expect dry wedges to save my bacon every time a storm comes through. Hurricane Charlie proved that.

The Rev. Jerry Eckert of Port Charlotte, Fla., is a retired clergy member of the Wisconsin Annual Conference.