September 4, 2017
I wasn’t really worried until the 4th. I thought it would be a small storm; I didn’t think my home would be destroyed. I thought it would be over fast; I had no idea I would be trapped for hours. I thought I would be okay; I really wasn’t.
Workers came by the house and boarded up the windows and pushed furniture out of the front room. They aided us in covering things with tarps. I think that’s when it really hit me. Was my home going to be destroyed? My mother was lighthearted and kind with me, she kept her spirits high, knowing if she cracked, I would as well.
More worries began when school was canceled. My mom insisted we go to the store, stock up on water, cans, candles. I rebutted saying it was nothing to worry about, but silently, in my heart I was already terrified. I was scared; scared I wouldn’t see my father or sister again for a long time. Scared I wouldn’t be able to get off the island, scared I would be stranded, maybe even scared I would die.
At this point looking back, it's so hard to imagine. I took pictures outside that day as I realized my world would never look the same again. It it didn’t, it doesn’t. The palm tree in the yard stood tall, the sky was powdered lightly with clouds and the occasional bird, nothing to suggest that two days later the sky would be full of mud, wind, and rain. But it certainly was.
I went to bed that night in darkness, no natural light, with a heavy heart.
September 5, 2017
It was a day of preparation. The roads were full of people of people getting ready for the storm. My mom and I were two of those scared people. Of course me, being me, also suggested we bake cookies to prepare, because cookies fix everything, right, right?
That night after I had prepared the dough, I put them in the oven for a while almost 30 minutes, and when I went to check them, they hadn’t baked at all. My mom said our landlord must’ve turned off the gas, and that she had. So the dough sat there on the counter, helpless and useless, like me.
As I went to sleep I worried and wondered, what will await me tomorrow?
September 6, 2017
Welp, that was the day; the day my, and many people’s lives changed. They say Hurricane Irma was one of the most powerful and destructive storms of the Atlantic in a century. It sure felt like it.
Around noon, as the sky darkened, my mom and I went down to the basement with my landlord, one of her other renters, and her dog. It was quiet and I fell asleep a few times until it started. The rain seemed to come all at once; the sky became white, but also dark as the wind came in strong, ever-repeating bellows. It whistled through the alleyways, taunting and screaming. I had kept light-hearted through this until one crash. It shook the house, and suddenly, I was silent. The only sound was the wind, the waving of the metal roofs nearby, and most loud, my heartbeat.
I didn’t know what had happened, was the roof, or the top floor gone? Was my home destroyed? Soon after I heard water dripping slowly at first but then faster, I ignored it, I was scared to know what it was until I couldn’t take anymore. I walked to the back of the apartment and saw the bedroom, completely flooded. Water rushed through the ceiling in sporadic places. My heart sunk as I knew what this meant. The entire top of the house must be gone. Fear shook through me and I called my mother to the room. Immediately the four of us began grabbing buckets and pots trying to collect the water. We had a system of collecting the water with the buckets and towels, and running to the sink to dump out the water.
My fingers were sore after an hour, but we kept going. We did this for five hours. They were the longest of my life. We stopped when the water slowed. My eyesight was blurry and I was completely exhausted. My mother and I left the basement when the storm ended and walk upstairs to our apartment. It was dark outside and silent. I kept thinking about the irrefutable ‘quiet after the storm’. When I opened the door to our apartment, water poured out. As I walked in, the only sound was the sloshing of my feet. I didn’t look around, I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want another reason to give up. So instead I walked into my water-logged room, sat on the damp bed, and thought.
I slept in my mom’s bed with her, it was the only room with a dry floor. Before we slept, we lay there silently awake. Words weren’t needed, I knew what she was thinking. She was afraid we wouldn’t be able to call my father, as was I. And that night as I fell asleep in the pitch-black, I wanted nothing but to see my dad.
September 7, 2017
At first, I couldn’t remember anything, until my I felt my foot throb. I had stepped on glass the night before when I ran out of the basement into three inches of standing water to use the adjacent restroom. The second thing I felt were my fingers, tense and tight from the constant pressure of the night before. I opened my eyes and it was still a little dark in the room. I opened the shutters in my mom’s room and saw that it was a bright, sunny, and of course hot day outside. My mom awoke in the light and we just sat there quietly for a bit. I left the room and got a can of corn for breakfast. We tried to call my dad but of course there was no service. With nothing else to do, we changed our clothes and began to clean up.
September 7th was a blur of cleaning and drying, organizing and carrying. We had nothing better to do, and it had to be done. So that night I went to sleep exhausted with nothing but a half-can of corn and a burnt hot dog in my stomach.
I was aware I had it so much better than a lot of people, I was alive, my mom was alive, and we were together. Not even Irma could hurt that.
September 12, 2017
The days between September 7th and 12th were spent reading, eating whatever food we could find, and worrying. We had bought tickets for two flights, both of which had been canceled. I was fearing I would never get off the island. We had gone to the firehouse to get MRE food rations and water, which tasted awful but it was better than the little to no nutrients I had been eating in my cans of corn and mashed potatoes.
It’s so strange remembering September 12th. My landlord had heard rumors about a emergency cruise ship taking people off island so my mom and I drove, breaking curfew as usual, to Havensight, where in fact there it was, our lifesaver. We went to the apartment, packed bags in anxiety, and went back as soon as possible. My mom’s special agent took the car to prevent it’s being any further damaged, and just like that My mom and I were in a line to register. We were originally planning on going to Puerto Rico but after a brief, and to be completely honest, confusing conversation on the phone with my grandmother we decided to go to Florida instead.
An escape, a way home, it felt so surreal. But, it wasn’t. Once we were on the boat we were given food and cold water. Then we were sent to our rooms, with clean beds and air-conditioning.
I was given a hot meal of my choice, and I swear, I had never felt so pampered in my life.
September 13, 2017
After eating breakfast, I went for a 2 mile run, bored out of my mind. Not to my surprise, all of the usual amenities of a cruise weren’t available so I spent most of my time reading, running, and drinking coffee.
September 15, 2017
At around 8:00 in the morning we got off the ship at a port in Miami, rode a bus to Ft Lauderdale, flew to Detroit, then, at last, we landed Baltimore at 7:00 pm. My knees were shaking, and somewhere in my heart I felt like this could all be a dream.. but it wasn’t. I was home, with my family, safe and happy.
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