That time Florence came to town…(hurricane part 2)

If you read my last post, you’ll know that hurricane Florence came to town a week or so ago. I live on the southeastern coast of NC just south of where she made landfall…and where she hung out for WAY too long dumping literally buckets of rain on us. Unfortunately, a large portion of those buckets started coming in to my house at some point on Saturday. Now before anyone starts saying, ‘oh no, you poor thing!’ let me clarify. Living at the beach, my house is up on pilings, it’s in the air. We do have a downstairs area that is finished where we relax and also where I see clients, but our main living area is upstairs and we’re all good there. That said, it is quite stressful when water starts pouring in to your house, running from one end to the other. We’ve got pumps and shop vacs, etc. so the hubby and I were actually kind of staying on top of it for awhile. Until we weren’t.
In last week’s post I mentioned that I don’t like asking for help. I still don’t. LOL. But when the water started gaining on us and we just couldn’t get control of it, I picked up the phone and made a call and sent a text. The call, “Lisa, is Wayne around? I’ve got water coming in and we need help.” The text, “Marley is Chad home? We’ve got water coming in and we need help.” Within 15 minutes of those communications I had four people pull up in our driveway with shop vacs and manpower. (Mind you, this was in the middle of the hurricane.) And, when they did everything they could to divert the water and it still didn’t work, they started moving the furniture they could and lifting the rest. And then we stood in the carport under the house drinking beer and laughing our butts off at anything and everything while the water flowed around us. Literally. Then there were the texts, messages, and phone calls from my friends around the country that simply said, ‘How are you and what can I do?’ And that’s what this post is about….the people, not the hurricane.
When you see a disaster somewhere on the news you often see just how awesome people are. The rescuers, the power line workers, the people that give out free food and water, etc. And your friends. But I’m not sure someone who hasn’t been in some sort of crisis situation really realizes how that makes you feel. How when these people show up, you have this sense of ‘okay, everything’s going to be alright.’ (Again, the hubby and I didn’t suffer HALF of what others in our state did and still are, so please know I’m not playing victim here…) I said in my last post how amazing it was that friends all around the country were offering us energy to blow this thing away and a place to evacuate to. And when we didn’t leave, they didn’t give up. They just kept offering…. So a few things did come out of this pain-in-the-butt storm. That time Flo came to town I was reminded of the kind of person I strive to be and that everything really is going to be okay. As Dory said, “Just keep swimming!” (Well, maybe that’s not the best choice of words…)
I’ll leave you with this. At one point, we ventured out to do a drive by of a few of our friends’ houses…they had evacuated and we knew they were probably freaking out wondering how their houses were holding up… We made it to a few of them, but then it started to pour again and we new we had to get back home to man the pumps. As we approached our house we saw a Turkey Vulture just sitting on one of our fence posts. When I say it was pouring I mean, it was coming down like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Words really can’t describe it. And yet he just sat there. So as the hubby stopped the car to watch him for a second, I connected with this guys and asked why he wasn’t hiding in a tree or somewhere a bit more protected. And he was just like,
‘Eh, what are you gonna do? Just goin’ with the Flo.’
(Okay, he didn’t capitalize Flo…that was me…but still.) A good message.
Live and learn in Munay.