Hurricane Irene-August 29th, 2011
[recollection of a natural disaster]
Dropping off my daughter Taylor for her freshman year of percussion at The Boston Conservatory is how I came to be in Boston on that date. Us Dads carried water from across town back to the dorms. I had never been through a hurricane (Irene) before. Oh sure, I had seen them on television, as the news anchors quaffed hair, and fine clothes are being whipped around by the powerful gusts. But, as I’m sure you are aware, seeing something on TV and experiencing it first hand are two different things.
This is what you don’t get on TV, the utter fear and uncertainty you feel as this great force of nature comes toward you with unalterable consequence. Watching the TV news, you see the weather people track the storm and give you minute-by-minute updates. It all seems so antiseptic, but it isn’t. It’s abjectly frightening and unnerving as this leviathan lumbers out of the night. Even when it turns day, and with the new light you think “Everything is going to be okay now, the night is gone, no need to worry.” But, the Hurricane doesn’t seem to care whether its day or night, it just is.
Actually, in the first pallid rays of morning sunshine it can seem even more distressing because you begin to comprehend. The sheer force of wind and rain mixing together in a deadly combination of rant and destruction. Trees uplifted, boats thrown about, streets flooded, and the never ceasing hard-rain. We were lucky, while there were some evacuations; no one was evacuated to an emergency shelter.
The melee started to subside, and I felt comfortable leaving my suite at the Boston Sheraton. I ventured downstairs past the lobby to see a large twisted tree, tipped over by the wind and rain. Tourists were lined up next to the tree. The wife would jump into the picture and the husband would take the shot, and visa versa. Both laughing and giggling, happy in the knowledge that the worst of the storm had passed, and they could let their false bravado overtake them.
Standing there in the storms wake I realized something. Although we had been publishing and marketing the GO|STAY|KIT™ since ‘09 I had never been in a natural disaster. I didn’t really understand what others where going through. But believe me, now “I Get It.” I get what it’s all about. The stress a natural disaster can play on your psyche. Unless you’ve been through it you really don’t understand. I used to laugh at the silly names the national weather service would give the hurricanes, but I don’t anymore. Whatever name they choose to give these monsters-it’s no joke.
BTW: As I was holed up in my suite on the 25th floor, my 17-year old daughter (with bravery far beyond her years) walked outside during the worst of it, got a birthday cake and some bottled water for her friends and walked back to BoCo. Of course, her umbrella turned inside out.
