You never want to see famous Jim Cantori in your town. I call my former manager in Clearwater, “Get out now!” A full schedule at the cancer center still in the bright sun seems hardly a need to rush the evacuation. We then see the weather team gravitate southward. Hmmm, why isn’t the science more exact? Didn’t we just explode an asteroid last week in outer space? Finally, I pay attention, not to the useless cone or spaghetti plots. One sentence out of all the hype and reporting from the Governor, not the experts: “This cat 4-5 hurricane is 500 miles wide!” What? that is the entire peninsula! Why aren’t they just saying that? Who cares about pinpointing land fall if we are all going into the drain? We scramble to make adjustments at the cancer center on the east coast. Patients are rescheduled, hospital administrators come through the dept to find sleeping space for staff who will need to stay through the storm, preparations are made to secure the equipment. By midday, we head out to heavy rain and wind with the storm still in the Gulf. The outer bands just spindly projections to get our attention.

Well, its all history now. I sheltered in a hotel while the storm barreled directly overhead and exited the east coast. The memes leading up were a fun distraction. “Watching a hurricane approach is like being stalked by a turtle”. But when it arrives, its no joke and we all chuckle until we don’t. Before cell and power went out for 2 days, everyone is checking in. Family and friends lending virtual support and wrapping Florida in a hug as the devastation unfolded. The local channels detail New Smyrna, Daytona and Orlando as it creeps in. Sitting duckies. I think, whats it doing over here, its a gulf coast event! I shoot off a cute meme to a former nurse coworker in its direct path near Ft Myers and advise her to stay safe. In retrospect it is insensitive. Hours later she replies that she, family and dogs were rescued by a paddle boarder as her car, truck and house are underwater. In a flash someone who has rescued cancer patients everyday for over 30 years, will not even be able to return to her life’s work for some time and even then, thru great effort.

It is all sobering. There is randomness too. A hotel next to mine also several miles from the beach has its parking underwater. People escaping who now can’t drive away when the coast is clear. Days later, I am left disoriented when I return home – just 80 miles up the road, everything is “normal”. I have to reach back to last week’s blog about a “fine mess” to remember to have faith that all will be well. The patients will return for care. The staff will navigate the trenches, the floods and heartaches will receded and people will support each other.

In the end I realize that it isn’t the tragedy surrounding a major event. It isn’t the shock of loss. It isn’t the upending of normalcy that will be the legacy. It will be the fearlessness, the lifting of each other, the compassion and caring, the deliberate fierceness of determination that will bring those in pain and suffering through it all. That is what remains even when all else is lost.

Have faith Florida and those affected by this terrible storm. You are still a beautiful part of a greater whole. The sun is shining again today.