Matthew is not our first hurricane rodeo. In Guatemala we had our trials by nature–earthquakes, volcanic eruption, tropical storms with flooding, power outages, no water for weeks. We always had a bag packed with our valuables in case we needed to evacuate quickly, which we often did.
The last hurricane Miamiams remember was Andrew in 1992. That’s ten years before Cali’s generation was born. But if there’s anything Floridians have been trained on properly, it’s hurricane prep. Matthew, a catagory 4, is due to make his appearance tomorrow. Even though we’ve had days to prepare, a storm’s fickle and often change directions or loses intensity. But today we all got serious about it at the same time.
We went to Home Depot to look for materials to build a fire pit. We walked in to a frenzy of people with 20 sheets of plywood, $800 generators, 8-10 gas cans, 2-3 coolers. We picked up one flashlight just to look semi responsible. Paul headed home to build a fire pit, cuz that’s what everyone needs in a hurricane.
I went for food at Publix. Forget finding a cart or even a basket. Most of us could only buy what we could carry. The lines were huge. I would have turned around, except that I really needed to buy tampons. The lines were half way down the aisles. Waiting in these long lines gave lots of time to get to know your neighbors, if they were friendly, which mine were. Our line was like our own little village. I could see other lines were the same, people talking and laughing. We waited for so very long, I found out the man in front of me doesn’t buy water when bad weather hits, only Yellowtail Wine. The couple in front of him were were buying only water, 6 cases of 24. The woman asked what the difference is between drinking water and distilled water. Then her husband joked, who cares. The wife replied, “That’s because in your country you drink well water, stream water, roof water, rain water, bay water, doesn’t matter to you.” He said, “They explained to me that you get extra food stamps when there’s a crisis, but they hadn’t been issued yet.” When that woman got to the check-out, she found out you can only buy maximum 2 cases of water, so there is enough for everyone. She turned to the lady in front of her and the man behind and asked if they would buy 2. The woman in front took her literally and paid for 2. The couple acted like they’d won the lottery–they were ecstatic. It takes a line-village to get ready for a hurricane.
Next, I went to Whole Foods to buy some fancy soaps to mail to my friend for her birthday. No store was as busy as Whole Foods. The food snobs are a serious, focused people. No village building there, just grumpy determination as they grabbed their staples, carrot chips, pom juice, and firm spicy tofu. But surprisingly, the biggest run was on fresh flowers. Somehow that staple didn’t make my emerg list. Gotta hand it to Whole Foods, despite the fact that they couldn’t keep up with the cart demands, they did run a tight ship at the register. I walked right up to the check out. No need to small talk with the other grumpy shoppers. No village here.
Stores are out of water, but there are water trucks delivering bottled water to the stores by the skid. So people wait and when it arrives surround it and voila, the skid is empty in less than 30 seconds. You can’t be shy if you want to emerge from the pack with a 24. We have a supply in our garage for just this reason, that way we don’t have to wrestle at the skids.
Later in the evening the family had a lively Ramones discussion of “should we stay or should we go now?”. The storm at this point was a category 4, possibly growing to a 5. That is severe. We left the final decision to be made at 5 am the next morning, to see if Matthew would shift East or West. That seemed sensible.