Yep. Once again that wonderful time of year has arrived here on Galveston Island. The time that makes all residents inwardly cringe, even as we outwardly enjoy our fishing trips or beach forays or residents’ days at Moody Gardens. For the next five months or so we are always looking over our shoulder at the weather broadcast. We keep our tracking charts at hand, or in our case, we have one in a permanent, prominent place on the wall in our kitchen. We double-check the plywood we use to cover the windows, or triple-check the operation of our built-in window blinds. We keep our gas tanks filled in the cars, contact that far-off place we have arranged to be our evacuation destination to place them on stand-by, and establish which will be the best route to take to get there. We do last-minute repairs on our generators (Oops. There’s one I haven’t done yet. Anybody out there work on small engines? Our generator won’t start).
We make our hurricane list of those things
we must take with us when we evacuate and the things we need to tie down in the
back yard and the things we need to put up on a shelf on the outside chance we
have another hundred year flood. We pull
out the portable file box where we will toss all our important insurance
papers, utility bills, birth certificates, bank documents, passports, medical
records. We pull down the designated
boxes from the attic that will be used to carry the most special of our family
photos (or in our case every single photo we have ever taken). Of course we check to make sure the baseball
card collections are packed and ready to go, since they will be the first thing
loaded (What? Doesn’t everybody do
that?).
We try to get at least one step ahead at
work so it won’t be quite so hard to catch up when we have to drop everything
and leave. Or in some cases, we repeat
the same processes at work that do at home.
Or in other cases we determine what projects we have to take with us
when we evacuate. Those who are
determined to stay no matter what begin gathering their extra supplies of water
and non-perishable food.
And then there are the cases of those considered “essential personnel.” They are the ones who will have to stay behind and ride out the storm, waiting for their call to duty to make the hard decisions about evacuations and re-opening the causeway and communicating with media. Essential personnel stay on the Island to care for patients at UTMB or patrol for looters or put out fires or do search and rescue. They respond to the inevitable desperate calls from those who were determined to stay no matter what.
And once everything is done and we can
consider ourselves “ready,” we wait. Oh,
we continue to live out our day-to-day lives, to be sure. But still we wait. We hope, as does the substance abuse addict,
for one more summer hurricane-free. We
chuckle inwardly at the bravado of the new-comers to the Island and their talk
of wanting to see a “real storm.” Oh, we
join them at the seawall during those minor tropical storms to see the waves
pounding against the seawall. Many of us
have done that our entire lives. But to the
conspiratorial, now-you-live-on-the-Island chatter, we always have to add, “But
I remember back in 2008 …”
Psalms 5:11-12 says, “But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for
joy. Spread your protection over them, that
those who love your name may rejoice in you. For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous; you
surround them with your favor as with a shield.”
Father, You are mightier than the mightiest
hurricane. We do ask for your protection
for … one more year. Amen.
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