Update #15: Shiver with antici…pation.

In the 2002 hurricane season, Ryan and I lived in New Orleans, along the south Louisiana coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It was not my first hurricane season, it was not my last, it was not my busiest, it was not the most memorable. It was however, the first time I ever experienced a low, teeming anticipation of a large, upcoming storm. Two storms, quite close together, hit the gulf: Isidore and Lili. Both storms attained pretty strong intensity during their times, a category 3 and 4, respectively. Both gained strength in the gulf, both produced strong winds and rains, both were newsworthy, producing conjectures on storm surge heights and potential damage. I remember vividly the first hint of wind I felt brush a hair across my right cheek while walking across a breezeway in my dorm building. It was late at night, the night before one of the storms was projected to hit. Classes were cancelled, our “hurricane” party was scheduled. The night was nice. I was enjoying laughing with friends and had run back to my room to get something. I was alone. While walking, the breeze suddenly picked up. I paused on the breezeway and looked south. What was out there? How far away was it? Would it hit here? I knew it was powerful, sustained winds of more than 125 miles per hour. What did that look like? Feel like? Sound like? Have you ever stood in winds like that? Watched the rain come sideways through edges of a window pane? At that point in my life, I had not. Hurricanes were different than tornadoes, I just didn’t know what to expect. As I sat there and thought about it, I imagined a swirl of death and destruction, a walled, wet, evil you couldn’t see coming in the night. Something that would chase you through the woods and, growling, run over your back, holding your face down in the wet earth. Should I be here? Should I leave? I shook it off. Where was I going to go after all with no car and no money? My friends were waiting with beer. I brushed off the feeling and laughed, running to my room to grab whatever it was I needed, and headed back out. When the storm hit later that week, we hung out and had a great time. I walked home in torrential rains very late at night. And when I woke up the next day, the sun was shining as if it had never happened. We joked about these types of storms for months, years. And when Katrina was in the gulf, one reason Ryan and I didn’t immediately leave was we remembered nights like this. Nights when the news was scary, but surely the storm couldn’t be THAT bad. But then, once, it was.

As I sit here on my porch, I have a sustained buzzing in my chest and stomach. A tense, underlying throbbing of anticipation. Like the feeling you have when you know someone has heard you say something upsetting, but you haven’t talked to them about it yet, and you know they are walking down the hallway. I’m having a harder and harder time thinking about other things. I’m reminded of standing on that breezeway and looking south. What is out there? How evil is it? Can we outrun it? Can we withstand it? What will the surge be? The damage? We don’t know. The pathology report is still not filed. We don’t know what the next few weeks and months will look like. We know there is a tumor. It has the potential to be evil. It has the potential to be just rain, with sunshine on the other side.

Batten down the hatches. We’re riding this one out. #ItsJoTime

Editorial notes: (1) Upon fact-checking the names of the storms in this story, I realized the storm that was named between the two mentioned above was “Josephine.” (2) Props to the first person who calls me out for my cheesy Rocky Horror reference. (3) I write this with the utmost respect for the people on the east coast riding out a storm of their own. Let us all take this opportunity to send light their way as well.

-CHW