We are supposed to feel the effects Thursday. We will feel tropical storm winds and rain. South Carolina coast will be feeling a hurricane. If I read correctly this thing is wider than our state. It is huge and powerful. My heart hurts for the Bahamas, especially for the island of Abaco. It is destroyed. I want so badly to pack up and go help those people restore their lives. I wish I had the time and money to take supplies and just gives hugs. I don't even know what I would say to them. There is nothing I could say to make it better. Nothing to change what was done. Nothing to put things back how they were or bring home those that were lost. I could gives hugs. I could give food. I could give supplies. For now, I give prayers. ( and I encourage anyone who can help, to help!) They are heavy one my mind and on my heart. This link:
Is to a Facebook page and it is full of missing faces, people needing help, ways to help, people offering help, pictures, videos, and more. Yes it's sad but I encourage you to go and look, pray, and help in other ways if you can.
I cant help but to think back to September 1989 when Hurricane Hugo came and showed us what he was made of. I remember that night vividly, and I was 4.
I was asleep. To be honest, I dont even remember knowing a storm was coming. I was scared awake by a whistling noise outside my window. I left my room and went up front where I found my parents. Mom was on the couch, I told her I heard a noise and it scared me. I knew immediately that something was wrong because she didn't send me back to bed. She told me to come sit with her. I remember the radio. I remember the wind ( oh God the wind). I remember looking out the kitchen window and watching our shed lift up off the ground and roll over the fence into our neighbors pool. At this point we had no power. We had flashlights and candles. I couldn't stay at the window long, daddy said something could break the glass if it blew into it. We moved a mattress into the hall. We shut all the doors in the hall. The 3 of us lay together on that mattress, in the hall, under a white blanket,listening to wind and rain. At one point it thundered, I am sure it did the whole time but I only remember this one. It was loud, it shook the house. The lightning was bright and it was like they happened at the exact same time. My dog, Lb, was having none of it. He jumped over the gate in the kitchen, over a lit candle, hit the mattress and had no intentions of moving. No one made him move. The 4 of us stayed right there.
At some point I fell asleep because the next morning I was alone in the hall and mom and dad were in bed. ( I was mad they left me in the hall.)
No power. No water. Couldn't go outside because of power lines on the ground. No school. No work. No phones. My playhouse was destroyed..We got in the car and went to go find grandparents. We couldn't get down Mimi and Papa's road because of a huge tree. We turned around to go another way and passed them. They were coming to check on us. We stopped on the side of the road with them. When we got to their house a tree had fallen on their car. My playhouse was destroyed. But otherwise I dont remember much damage.
We went to my other grandparent's house. They had a tree fall and put a hole in the roof. Oh, yeah...my playhouse was destroyed..
Their lake house had a tree fall and poke several holes in the roof.
I remember trips to the laundromat. Filling up trashcans of water at a lake to dump in the bathtubs ( gotta have water to flush the toilet)
I remember the shirts they sold afterwards and the cans of water.
Such vivid memories, like it was yesterday. It scared me, and it is the reason hurricanes scare me today. I dont want to go through that again, and I came out of it with my family and my home in tact.
I cannot imagine what 4 year olds in the Bahamas are thinking or dealing with right now. I cant imagine what adults are thinking and dealing with.
I want to go help. I want to go comfort people. All I can do right now is pray and continue to monitor their situation through news/social media. I will continue to monitor this storm as it makes it's way towards our coast. I will continue to obsess over it and all it has done.
This is going to be another long hurricane season...
No comments:
Post a Comment