Milton Moments

On the night Hurricane Milton roared into our little town I was sitting and making fabric yoyos at the kitchen table. We have a rechargeable LED lightbulb in the fixture over it that comes on when the power goes out, and I was in the center back area of the house, which is basically the safest spot unless we're dealing with a tornado.

My guy was exhausted from doing our last-minute preps, and the storm had jogged further south, so he decided to go to bed. I tried to nap on the couch but I couldn't relax. Every so often I'd take my flashlight and use it to try to see what was happening outside. That's the worst part of having a hurricane at night -- when the power goes down, the world goes dark and combined with the rain and wind you just can't see anything.

A few times I opened the back porch door a few inches to look outside. The sound of the wind (even for someone deaf like me) was horrendous, and it kept trying to fling the door out of my hands. This tree, which lost a few branches that night, was completely bent over to the left as the back of the eyewall winds, the worst of the night, hit us. It's a tree we think is about a hundred and fifty years old, btw, and has been through dozens of storms, but I've never seen it do that.

We've lived through a lot of hurricanes over the years. I've always thought that the three that came consecutively back in 2004 were the hardest to endure, as they forced us to live without power for almost a month during the hottest weather that summer. In terms of what happened to this house Hurricane Irma did way more damage back by tearing off roof shingles and siding in 2017. But when I looked out into the storm on the night Milton came through, at the very worst moment it was the same for me as staring into the proverbial abyss. Had it just been a little bit stronger, I could see the force of the storm tearing our home apart, or causing it to collapse on top of us. That hellish potential was all right there, not ten feet away from me. It left me quite shaken.

We will go through more storms; living here it's inevitable. We will keep learning from our experiences, prepare well and do what we can to ensure our safety. Yet never again will I assume we're safe. Not after this one.