OPINION: We are all ‘Florida Man’ in wake of Hurricane Ian’s destruction
My mom moved to Miami 10 days before Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. She was 19, didn’t speak English, and was immediately baptized as a Floridian. She rode the storm out in a small bathroom with her uncles and cousins. After the storm, she waited in lines for hours to get food and water, did laundry in the overflowing lake behind the house, and was without power for over a week.
I grew up in South Florida in the 2000s, where stories of Andrew were told in hushed tones. Over a decade later, the storm was talked about with the same somberness as what I imagine it was like in the immediate aftermath. In middle school, our history books had pictures of debris fields that used to be entire neighborhoods, reminding us of the ever-present threat that comes with living in the Sunshine State.
Hurricane season typically runs from June through November and in 2005, multiple storms made their way through the southeastern United States. Everyone remembers Katrina and how it altered the state of Louisiana forever. Although Katrina did make its way through Florida, Wilma is the storm that I can remember like it was yesterday.
Wilma hit on Saturday, Oct. 22. My mother, step-father, brother and I rode the storm out in a bathroom. My parents put a mattress on the floor and after the power went out, I remember hearing the wind howl like a wounded dog, crying for help. At one point, the howling just… stopped. My mom, armed with stories from Andrew, pointed out that the eye of the storm was passing over us.
I remember going outside to experience the eerie calmness of the storm. What was just 30, 45 seconds max, felt like hours. We went back to the bathroom, the sounds of the wounded puppy returned, and eventually, I fell asleep.
At the time, my stepdad worked as a tech guy for a company that had offices in South Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina. I remember grabbing a bag, hopping in a car, and going to his office to grab some computers they needed him to save. In the middle of the night, my brother, step-father and I walked through the office with flashlights, grabbed the computers, and hopped in the car.
Destination: Charlotte.
Peeking out of the backseat, my home was unrecognizable. We’d had flooding before, sure, but this was next-level. The water forced us to drive at a much slower pace than normal. Not a single traffic light was working. Trees and branches were littered across the street. When we made it out of Broward and into Palm Beach, the lines for the rest stop gas station stretched for miles. For a minivan carrying two adults, two kids, and thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment, running out of gas was not an option.
Until we did.
After a while, a police officer pulled up behind us. His sole job for the evening was to find cars that ran out of gas and give them just enough to make it to a Cumberland Farms station a few miles past the rest stop so they could fill up and continue their evacuation. If there was ever a time to believe in some kind of diety, that was it. He gave us a few gallons of gas, gave us directions to the station, and drove off to find someone else who needed help.
As we were pulling out of the gas station, I saw the cop pull in and start re-filling the same containers that had saved us just 10 minutes ago. I’ll never know who that man is, but he saved us (and countless others) that night.
Eventually, we made it to Charlotte to drop off my stepdad. My mother continued the drive to Virginia with my brother and me, where my uncles opened their homes to us for about three weeks. Wilma had devastated the power grid in Broward, with schools closed for two weeks. We spent Halloween in Virginia, which was especially fun for us because they gave out full-sized candy bars in the neighborhood we trick-or-treat in.
The full impact of Hurricane Ian won’t be known for months. The immediate images are apocalyptic. Places like Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Naples, and more up and down the West coast of the state are unrecognizable. But those people are not alone. Every Floridian has a story like the one I told. My mom has Andrew, I have Wilma, and an entire generation of Floridians will, unfortunately, have Ian.
Right now, it doesn’t matter what college football team we cheer for. What matters is that we, as Floridians, come together and take care of our own. On Sunday, we’ll watch the Gators play a football game, but our minds and hearts will be on something more important than a game. Now, more than ever is when we need that good Samaritan who filled up my family’s car with gas when we needed it.
Let’s show the nation who “Florida Man” really is.
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