Night in the Rain

        As the first radar images of Hurricane Frances were sent across the airwaves and into the homes of unsuspecting South Florida residents, there was a sense of nonchalance. We had all been through our fair share of hurricanes, and this was just going to be another one to store underneath our veteran belts.
         The next few days were ridden with mad dashes to the store where one would be met with the entire population of your town, all in a final attempt to buy the last gallons of water or a few spare batteries. We all secretly judged the odd gray sky with its racing clouds. No one would deign to admit the worry, the hidden fears of the homes that would be sacrificed, or worse yet, the lives. After all, we are Floridians.
         I “hunkered down” that Labor Day weekend, just as the television news instructed, meeting family at my grandmother’s house in Palm City. We would wait out the storm there, in her house that smells forever of fried plantains and rice. The first morning hours were calm, delicate drops of water tinkling against her hurricane-proof windows, through which we could watch the havoc unfold.          
         That night, however, I remember a mess of palm fronds being thrust against the front door, hail pummeling the roof like a bombardment of fists, the wind claiming shingles and uprooting the infant guavas in the front yard. My father and I stared in wonder, like children, eyes wide, taking in the destruction like sponges. The familiar voices of Steve Weagle and Mike Lyons became our friends that night, much like Churchill in the midst of a blitzkrieg.
         My parents and grandmother had lived in North Miami during the infamous Hurricane Andrew, claimer of land and human life. They spoke of the horrific sounds from above that they had heard in their blindness, sheltered by plywood, huddled in the dark, awaiting the devastation that would surely be outside. Frances was nothing like that. This time, they were able to witness the old Avion trailer that my uncle had purchased the year before in the hopes of remodeling it be flipped over and land three feet from the west wall of my grandma’s house in a deafening cacophony of metal, not to be removed and demolished until 2008. This time, they could watch in silence as the yellow Poinciana in my uncle’s yard next door tumbled to the ground, its flowers scattered across the grass, and lifted without abandon into the unforgiving wind.
         Once the eye with its daunting eighty-foot diameter arrived, making landfall over nearby Port Salerno, my older cousins, then in high school, tagged me along where we stood on the wraparound patio outside as the rain halted, the wind refusing to let up. We wore ponchos that enveloped our bodies so that we swam in yellow nylon, and stood, our backs to the wind, to see if we could withstand the ninety-five mile per hour force which attempted to strike us to the ground.
         During the eye wall, more trees were uprooted and more shingles were lifted from the roof. That night, I slept on the cold white tiles of the guest room shower, wrapped like a burrito in an orange sleeping bag, listening to the torrent outside, my parents and aunt keeping vigil with their companion, the radio.
         The aftermath was heartbreaking. Driving down Kanner Highway, one would see businesses with shattered glass and gas stations with lines on cars stretching down the road due to the fact that gasoline could not reach the area because of streets blockaded by fallen palms. On Cove road, in Port Salerno, and in Willoughby, the heart of the storm, one was met by a sea of blue tarpaulins stretched across roofs that did not make it. One could not even imagine the water damage that lay within. The heavy-duty roof of Pinewood Elementary had been smashed in, leaving its students without a home for the rest of year, and causing the school board to shut down everything else as they decided where to place them.
         For years afterward, the community complained of FEMA’s ill response to the damage, not only in South Florida but in the Panhandle as well. The tarps did not completely disappear, and the citrus industry never recovered, groves relinquishing crops and usable land to the storm, oranges scarce in the area for the first time in years. The same goes for all of Martin County, we experienced the hurricane season of 2004, we were at the center of Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne, and we will never forget.