Stranger than Fiction

Weathering the storm

Once in a while, nature has to extract a price for its blue waters and palm trees and warm winters. Usually, it's a gator eating a poodle or a shark attack. If it weren't for the miserable summers, insect problems and vicious wildlife, the state would be even more crowded.

By far, hurricanes are the highest price Floridians pay for their pleasure. Early on, those who move here learn terms such as "tropical depression," "sustained winds" and "Saffir-Simpson Scale" will be part of their vocabulary.

I've been through four -- Danny, Earl, Georges and Irene, which actually was a near-miss in Fort Lauderdale. Floridians give the hurricanes human traits -- probably because they're the only natural disasters with names. They nail protective plywood over their windows and spray-paint commands. Newspaper reporters will write that a particular hurricane "set its sights on central Florida," as if the swirling mass of air and water was a marauding conqueror.

Being a journalist, I spent those hurricanes soaking wet, running into shelters to interview people who evacuated their homes or slogging through floodwaters to interview one displaced resident after another. It was miserable, all right, but all those hurricanes were at the low end of the 1-5 scale. I developed the bravado of the inexperienced -- those who weren't around for Andrew and Camille and those other hurricanes whose names were retired from the list because of their severity.

So here comes one named Charley last week -- forecast to go right up the mouth of Tampa Bay. People got out their plywood and spray-painted "Sorry, Charley" and their other superstitious slogans. The Other Half and I had a dear friend visiting -- Gabe Hartwig, the Southeast Missourian's design and graphics editor -- and I explained his options a few days before landfall.

"At best, it will go somewhere else and nothing will happen here," I said. "At worst, it will tear up the apartment and everything in it. I don't believe that will happen, because the hurricanes never go where the forecasters say. But you have to decide whether to stay or get on a plane while you still can."

He decided to stay. When Friday morning came, and Hurricane Charley was still coming, I wondered why I hadn't scared him more, told him he had to leave. But here we were, packing enough clothes, water and food to stay at my newspaper office for two days. The streets were empty as we drove into downtown Tampa at dawn, the way they are on Christmas.

But Charley didn't come to Tampa. A cold front that made Missourians shiver in August saved us when Charley ran into it. He made a hard right turn and killed 18 people and counting 110 miles south of us. The palm trees barely rustled outside our windows. It rained a couple of times.

I haven't seen the devastation except in pictures -- I'm an editor now, sentenced to 16-hour office shifts while reporters call in their feeds from the fields. Even on my day off, I didn't go. I remembered how humiliating it was when a tornado hit my family home in Sikeston, and the curious rolled by, pointing like zoo visitors.

I'll keep pretending the hurricanes that visit my city are all like Danny and Georges, where a few material goods are the worst things lost.

Otherwise, who could keep living here?

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian who currently lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.