The title of this post is from the opening page of Peter Matthiessen's SHADOW COUNTRY where he describes a waterfront town in Ten Thousand Island coast of Florida after a hurricane had struck. I often read the first two paragraphs of that book when I know that a hurricane is coming up the coast and when I know I might well be in the middle of the storm on the narrow strip of sand known as the Outer Banks. The question I have when going to a storm is not so much about what the hurricane will be like - after 20-some years of covering the storms down there I know what it will be like - but what I wonder about it what will the villages be like after the storm has passed. That is always the question.
I was on Hatteras where there was not too much damage. Hearing dire reports from Ocracoke Island I told a friend that those stories were most likely exaggerated. I know now that I was greatly mistaken. In the lower portion of the photograph above you see the high water marks from what had been considered the severe hurricanes that crossed over the island. You can see that those marks pale in comparison to Dorian's mark.
As it was explained to me, there are something over 900 year-round residents on the island. Most of those people live in the older homes meaning those built between a century ago and maybe the 1970s. Those homes were built much lower to the ground than the more recently homes built on stilts.
When Dorian's storm surge came - I heard it described as both a tsunami and as a river rushing through the narrow lanes of the village - the water flooded most of those older homes, damaging the floors, walls and most importantly the wiring. Most of those homes will need to be completely rewired before folks can keep cold food in a fridge, cook on an electric stove or keep cool and comfortable in air conditioning. Cars and trucks parked on "high" ground, were flooded and destroyed. The road to the ferry docks at the north end of the island was ruptured. Those people now have no place to live, few undamaged possessions and no way to make a living.
As one resident said, they are in survival mode. Health and safety are not assured at this point. The island has a long hard path to recovery, one that will take months if not years.
The islanders, being islanders, are coping with a smile. Waiting to catch the evening ferry off the island I met a woman whose house was flooded, jeep totaled, she lost pretty much all of her belongings. She was also a double amputee. I have since heard that after dealing with the storm's damage for a few days she decided to go the the beach for a swim, something she described as glorious. Somehow during the swim she lost one of her "legs" in the ocean. It did not faze her, she could weld a new, temporary leg. Then friends showed up with her lost leg, having found it washed up on the beach. She saw it as a metaphor for life on the island. "The sea taketh, and the sea giveth back!"
The coast for now lies broken. I wish the islanders well as they work to mend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment