It's That Time of Year - Hurricane Preparedness

There’s one major thing that binds us together here in the Southeast. It comes out of the tropics and tries our sanity and livelihoods. It drives us away at the same time it pulls us together. It doesn’t care about your social standing; your race or what you had for breakfast or even if you drank too much last night. We’re talking the Big Blow, Satan’s Toilet Bowl or a heap-o big trouble hurricane.

As a nerdy weather fascinated kid, the Carolina Coast was all hurricanes, ship wrecks and pirate treasure. On one of the few, infrequent fall family trips to the coast; I prepared my own “hurricane” bunker in the sand dunes. I found some great driftwood planks and dug down several feet in between two dunes and buried the whole lot with several feet of sand.

Hurricane Hugo before it hit the Awendaw, SC area. September 1989

Once it was complete, I remember my ten year old self’s internal debate. I listened to the autumn sea oats rustling and the breakers churning, after completing the bunker dug into the side of the September dunes. As much as I wanted to believe, that I was now master of my destiny, I realized then and there, that nature was always the master and I was the privileged guest. “If there are 20 foot seas and winds of 110 mph...” and I tidied up my construction realizing its sheer naivety and thought “well it was fun building it anyway and those planks worked perfectly”.

That was the only disaster shelter I ever built, not that I didn’t try again after finding a 50’s book about Civil Defense during nuclear war. The title was akin to Build A Fallout Shelter in Your Basement (Before Your Ass Is Fried). It was published by the government and surely they knew what we should be doing.  I tried several times the following year, without success, to convince my parents that we had better build a fallout shelter - like yesterday! We had the moldy cricket infested basement, we just needed air filtration, 30 days supply of food, 8 inches of lead sheeting and…

Historic hurricane tracks. The circle shows a
75 mile radius around the Charleston, SC area
Image captured from the NOAA website 4/2011.

Now somewhat older (no claims to being wiser) the best hope of safety for life and limb lay well inland, but in the Southeast that’s really no assurance you won’t be hammered elsewhere. If you’ve ever survived a big storm; there’s a before, a during and if your luck and preparedness prevail, an afterwards. A storm like Hugo rearranges the foundations of the earth and all you can do is retrench and try to make something with the new reality. The changes after a storm aren’t only physical, the wind and water spin relationships and communities around and something different comes out on the other side. Usually something better; cohesion, we’re in this together and what can we do to help those folks? That’s the real America.

Spending my first miserable summer in the Low Country last year (damn it’s hot here, what happened to cooler at night?) and still reeling from the “not-so-great” recession, I felt fortunate in managing to avoid a major evacuation or storm along the coast. I’ll feel even more fortunate if I can say that again at the start of this coming November. It’s been 22 years since Hugo hit and we’re past due. So in preparation for the 2011 storm season, which starts June the first, I’ve put together a survival guide which might help you weather the next blow a little bit better. We’ve seen some major technology changes in those intervening years so I’ve tried to reflect those here. Be prepared, stay safe and be ready to get the hell out!

The State Newspaper, Columbia, SC - 157 photos from Hugo