We have two things to celebrate this weekend: The 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine — hooray! — and the fact that we weren’t struck by a hurricane, or a tropical storm, or any other force of nature.
Because for a while last week it sure seemed like that might be in our future, didn’t it? Tropical Storm Erika picked up steam in the Caribbean and got us all in a tizzy.
Five-day cones started pointing straight at us. Batteries and bottles of water disappeared off of store shelves. People started rioting in the streets when they realized they might have to eat canned meat. A locust sighting caused panic and cries that it was the end of the world. (Lucky, for us they weren’t locusts at all.)
But even the tropical doubters — the ones who think there’s a magical force field over the city that bounces storms to the Carolinas — had to think twice and steady their resolve.
I had to steady my resolve. “I can’t go back to canned meat,” I declared one evening. “It’s too high in sodium!”
That’s when I realized we’ve gone too long without a real threat of tropical weather. That we’ve become lax and skitterish and even un-prepared. The little puff in Hispaniola taught us a lot last week.
As a neighbor said to me, “We’ve better plan to do some hurricane planning.”
Yep.
It’s been so long since we’ve had a real threat — even the slightest brush with doom.
We’ve had it too easy for too long. We’ve started taking for granted our run of good luck. That it’s been quiet, and that we haven’t had a run-in with a tropical
I found myself awake in bed one night counting the number of windows throughout my house. As the count went higher, I cursed that we ever put an addition on the house and wondered how in the world I would ever board them all up.
Or what about the animals? Not just a dog. We have two chickens. My hurricane evacuation plans now have to include taking Ruby and Louise in a hamster cage. A HAMSTER CAGE!!!
“What about the fish?” my daughter asked.
My wife said something along the lines of, “the fish can swim,” and left it at that. (I started looking through Tupperware containers.)
It’s been so nice for so long. So tropically peaceful.
So happy birthday, St. Augustine. And here’s to hoping we keeping dodging those storms and the magical force field keeps spinning them off elsewhere.