Hurricane Helene

 Well, that was terrifying.
The storm that I mentioned in the last post turned into a Category 4 hurricane.  And all of the projected paths very consistently showed it making a direct hit on Tallahassee.

It would wobble a little to the east, a little to the west, but pretty much headed straight here.  I did everything I could - all the outside furniture moved inside, the freezer filled with water bottles, large jugs of water for flushing in the bathtub, another dozen kitty litter buckets of water for same - and for washing dishes, laundry, and myself - on the front deck.  I was figuring on being without power/electricity for at least a week.

After I had done everything I could think of, I spent as much time as possible at the museum.  Many of the volunteers are students and had gone home; others had chosen to evacuate, so they were short handed.  And so much had to be done - with the exception of the farm animals and the deer, all the animals were loaded into carriers (you think a house cat is hard?  Try a panther) and dragged indoors.  I got to do interesting things like be part of a wall (a line of us, holding blankets between us) to try to chase the wolves into their holding cages (thinking, of course, that it's a wolf, and I'm a monkey with a blanket, and what could possibly go wrong), snagging a couple of annoyed screech owls out of their box, and trundling across the museum grounds with a wagon load of turtles.

I decided that maybe I have earned my Florida Girl card.  I was digging a shallow trench in front of the alligator pond to try to divert the water a little and keep so much sand from washing into it, and really didn't think anything of it when the alligators (about 6 feet long) came over to see what was going on - about 4-5 feet away from me.  But honestly - there's a difference between an animal in hunting mode (cue the theme from "Jaws" here), and one that's going "Whatcha doing?  Maybe you have a fish for me?"

So that was all day Wednesday, and Thursday morning.  I decided to come home when some wind and rain bands came through, because sometimes trees come down in my driveway and I wanted to be able to get the car home and under cover.

After that, it was just a matter of waiting.  The damn storm slowed down, so what was supposed to be a projected afternoon landfall turned into 8 p.m., then 10, then 11.

I did not fear for my life.  The tremendous destruction comes from storm surge and flooding - and my house is on high ground.  The big danger would be a tree falling on the house.  But I was envisioning the yard, even in best-case scenario of no real damage.  I remember the entire 5 acres being knee to waist deep in yard debris, and the 20-something trees down.  And this year there would be no Bob to deal with it.

I did get tired of fretting about the chickens.  I kept telling myself that their coop is quite sturdy.  But was it sturdy enough to survive a tree fall?  And it's a plastic tool shed - would it be blown over and rolled across the yard?  I finally gave up, put down a sheet in the living room, dragged in the dog kennels, and moved the girls inside.

This did cause me a momentary panic during a rain band, when I heard something that sounded like water dripping in the living room.  It was the chickens pecking.

It was time for landfall (the eyewall hit around 11 p.m.)  The rains got heavy, the wind started to pick up, the power flickered - and that was it.  The storm had wobbled about a degree to the east - landfall was away from Tallahassee.

I feel gutted, and have a case of survivor's guilt.  It came ashore at almost the exact same place as the last two.  That's right - this area has had three hurricanes in 13 months (after going 170 *years* without a direct hit).  And the storm has worked its way up, causing unbelievable devastating damage.

Me?  I got nuthin'.  Power barely flickered.  Rain, but I've had harder summer downpours.  One tree down, poking over my driveway a little, but my wee chainsaw took care of that.

But somehow I couldn't unclench.  I moved the chickens back to their yard, and cleaned up after them - discovering that a combination of pine shavings and cat hair will really jam up a vacuum cleaner, so had to do some surgery there.  I put the cat carriers away (I had brought them from the barn to the house in case of emergency).  I took care of that tree.

I was still feeling the same way Saturday - so I went back to the museum, because they're still short handed.  Thank goodness, other than a ton of tree branches down and losing power for a day, there was no real damage.  But there is some aftermath to deal with.

That's just a fraction of the carriers.

I finally realized why I was still clenched up.  Back in our Halloween Howl days, we knew the techniques of scaring people.  You get them really tensed up, and then you can release that tension with the scare (the "BOO" moment).  But sometimes you would set up an area with nothing in it, just letting them walk through the woods at night, knowing that something was going to jump at them.  Then, when they were worked up, you'd set up an area with some obvious hiding spots - and then do nothing.  No release of the BOO!  Just more tension.

That's what happened to me.  I was, admittedly, deeply frightened.  Then nothing happened.  I never got the tension relief.  Finally, midday Saturday, I realized that I was safe, and I could feel both my body and my brain shutting down.  Unfortunately, I was still at work, finding it increasingly difficult to focus.  We were making up the diets.  I was at the meat station - the most involved one.  But simultaneously, I was helping the person doing the fox/bear/beaver station - a wonderful person from administration who had come in to help, but had of course never done this before, so I was talking her through it.  Somehow, I muddled through, came home, and crawled into the bath for awhile.

Today I have pretty much done diddly-squat.  I'm still getting the storm out of my system - in this case, literally.  When the museum closed on Wednesday, the cafe brought over hot dogs and pulled pork.  People had brought in boxes of chips and snack crackers and cookies, luncheon meat and cheese and loaves of bread.  Stress eating was at an all-time high.  I had more meat and white bread in those three days than I normally consume in 6 months, and I'm paying the price a bit.  But I'm back to salads and veggies and whole grains and things are settling down.

Most of my storm prep has been put away.  But those kitty litter bins of water on the front deck?  Heck with it - they're staying there.  I just emptied and put them all away only 6 weeks ago after Hurricane Debbie.  There are two months left in hurricane season, and at the moment there is *something* brewing out in the Atlantic.

But for now, I'm safe.