Hurricanes

There's a monster hurricane that's probably about to smack the hell out of my state.

Currently, it looks very much like I'm just really close to the danger zone, not in it. There are a lot of projections that say Tampa Bay should be prepared to weather something pretty awful but we're not being named as being in specific catastrophic danger. You know, like Miami and the Keys and Puerto Rico basically are.

I'm not in southern Florida and that's looking to get hit the hardest in the state by latest projections. But that's super scary, and the state is officially under a declaration of emergency.

Why am I talking about this?

I generally don't prepare much for hurricanes.

I've never run out and bought batteries and bottled water. Though I guess if I were to lose power and face all this nastiness, I'd be not too far up the creek. I don't need special care or medications. I don't eat much and a lot of what I would need to eat is shelf stable. I've got water and other liquid. 

And if it looks like it's coming to hit us, I know damn well the best thing to do is evacuate.

You do NOT screw around with a Category FIVE hurricane.

Living in Florida, I've lived through a few. Category 1 is just really wet. In Florida we're so used to those that we often don't even do anything. I had to go to school during a Category 1 once. I BIKED through one and took a final exam in college. 

At Category 2 they really aren't worth ignoring, though. And of course, on up. I went into hiding in a friend's dorm which doubled as a hurricane shelter when I was in college one time. It was a Category 5. 

It was one of the scarier times of my life. 

There's nothing you can really do about this stuff except get out of its way and hope you have something to come home to.

My current method of dealing with it is primarily denial. Maybe it'll die in the ocean and not really hurt anyone, and maybe it won't last long on land. I don't have time for this right now. I'm packing to move to my new house. I'm, like, busy.

I know that hurricanes don't care.

There is no convenient time for a hurricane to hit. 

Once, a hurricane came to my city and knocked out the power for about a day. I was grumpy about not being able to finish what I was cooking, and I ended up stuck in my apartment with my ex-boyfriend, who was being a total tool most of the time (surprise). I got power back pretty quickly, but some people nearby had no power for at least a week and kept coming to my bookstore where I worked to be in the air conditioning for a while.

These things are scary.

I hope I don't have to evacuate and I hope I just get to go on with my already-pretty-stressful-right-now life. I have control over a lot of the aspects of that stressful life. Part of the reason I can handle it is that I am proactive about dealing with it.

I'm not really like that with hurricanes. I just hope.

Just hoping all I get is soggy. And hoping where it does hit, it will be merciful.