We Got Nuked

Just in case you hadn't heard.

Broward County, Florida was Ground Zero for Hurricane Wilma's visit to the US.

Now that we're finally beginning to recover, I can add to kmom's email. Just please understand, what we feel here, myself and Walter and my neighbors, is pure and simple gratitude. We were lucky. Extraordinarily lucky.

See, it's been far, far worse than I let on to kmom at the time.

Our power was restored last night - 8 days after Wilma hit. We weren't scheduled to get it until November 22, but we're on the same grid as a fire station, so we have electricity while most of our neighbors still don't.

Almost all our phone service is finally working again, too. Even the cell phones were blown out. We're still under a Boil Water advisory, but at least we had water again after only a couple of days without.

This area is devastated.

In our neighborhood, at least there's been no loss of life so far. But every single house was, one way or another, trashed.

Our queen palm came down and smashed into the orchid tree, which kept it from slamming through the roof and/or window - and/or me.

Unfortunately, just after the tree slowed, a window on the east side of my home office blew out.

And the hurricane blew in.

It picked up an ironing board that was leaning against the wall and tossed it around. It knocked my precious framed antique fan off kilter, and took my prize-winning 1st grade drawing of "Smiling Elephants" down, but didn't break the glass.

It threw around some electronics, too. The laptop appears to have bit the dust.

Me, I got a bunch of little glass cuts, some of which are now MRSA infections, and us with no doctors or hospitals open. But it could have been so very much worse. Broken glass blowing at hurricane-force winds is dangerous indeed.

After the blowing glass, the problem was this: Once your house is breached and the hurricane gets inside, the whole place can go like a house of cards.

All our plywood was stored outside. I was NOT going out for it in the middle of the hurricane. That's one of the principal reasons for fatalities.

I ran through the house to our stash of rehab stuff and found a piece of plexiglass. It was a little too big and Lord, that stuff is strong, you absolutely have to predrill holes. The cell phone was still working some, and I talked to Walter and hacksawed and drilled and after working about an hour - listening to that Howl, trying to push the plexi into place with a hurricane pushing it back into me, and broken glass slicing me up - suddenly the eye of the hurricane passed over. Just the southern edge of it, just a little space. Just enough to let me hammer the sucker into place before the Howl started up again.

I was tired and bruised and bleeding, probably a few hairline fractures - my fingers, and oh God, the bad foot got smashed, the hurricane kept blowing the plexi into me over and over as I tried to fit it - but it was quiet again. I mean, the hurricane sounds were outside the house, not inside.

I felt safe.

I knew then that for a small stretch of time, I'd felt real fear.

I have nothing against fear. Reasonable fear is the kind I respect. It's there for a reason. It tells you something important, something you need to know.