Do I stay, or do I go? House sitting for friends in Stuart, FL gave me an opportunity to ride out hurricane Matthew, September 2016. A category 4 hurricane with predicted 130 mile-an-hour winds, power outages, and mandatory evacuations. Fortunately Maggie and I never lost power, so I could watch CNN reporters filling air space with “run for your lives…roofs are going to blow off, Florida will be uninhabitable for months, and power will be out for weeks”. Sitting watching TV in a house enclosed in hurricane shutters was weird, you can hear the wind, but can’t see anything outside.
Of course there were stupid people on the beaches, when beaches were closed. Residents of ‘manufactured homes’ (aka trailers) were ordered to evacuate. Unfortunately, these are the very people with the least ability to leave. Retirees on fixed incomes or minimum wage workers who don’t have money for gas or hotels. The best, of course are the reporters standing in wind and rain, reporting it was windy and raining.
The good news Matthew didn’t come ashore, no 130 mph winds materialized and Maggie and I never lost power. We were very lucky. It could have been a huge disaster, but it wasn’t.
Checking hurricane off my bucket list. Until the next one!
