While the hurricane season in the Atlantic basin has just recently started to become active again, we think about today but 5 years back when hurricane Irma battered the place where I used to live. Irma, one of the strongest hurricanes ever with wind speeds of more than 300 km/h. That means you have something flying into you with the speed of a formula 1 car. Not good for anything.
Cracked palmtrees
I was there, knew it was coming, was prepared but still was never actually prepared for what actually came versus what I thought would be coming. I was thinking about basics: getting water for drinking, getting canned food to have weeks of supplies, making sure the house was safe. I turned out all so different than I thought. And in the end I was most impressed not by the storm itself even though the sound of the wind makes you very weird, but by the aftermath. By the people and how they responded to everything. And by how broken everything could become.
The small island in the eye of the storm is the island St Martin, yes the eye was directly on us there.
I read a book last year by the author ‘Rutger Bregman’ who is a Dutch writer and talks about how often we generically think about that humans suck, while actually they don’t. With examples of how people act in masses shootings, versus ‘Lord of the flies’ like situations and how in the end people respond way better towards each other than they has expected.
Maybe I am the pessimist about people then who actually does think that most people are stupid and suck and only think about themselves, because that is what I initially remembered about the time after this hurricane. Treating people in the hospital who were trying to break into people’s houses and stealing their crap after all of their windows were blown out with my last medical supplies. Seeing people loot flat screen televisions while I knew that these guys didn’t even have a roof over their head anymore. Thinking in my own thoughts on when someone was potentially trying to take my food what I wouldn’t care doing to them.
Maybe the scary thing wasn’t about the other people what I saw, maybe it was my own thoughts that were scary and disappointing. At least that is how I look back at them after all of these years.
Container carambole
We tend to forget the good stuff that happened as well. Cleaning up together, starting to sweep and mop from second 1. Passing out food from the red cross, trying to locate people family members, people raising clothes for others who had lost theirs. All these things were actually great and the feeling of working together was a good one. I remember this one evening on the balcony of my neighbor where we just talked afterwards and the sun was setting with all kinds of people I didn’t know, and we were united because of what we had been through.
I remember my male colleague crying in my arms because he didn’t know if we were alive, I remember taking care of another colleague who was hit by a blasting window and stayed in our care for days, I remember there were a lot of emotions. And I remember that stuff is fragile and that living in a dense population on mainland where stuff is taken care for is a different thing. Islands and transport when there is no airport anymore and no harbor anymore have issues really fast, did I already mention lack of gasoline and drinking water?
So many things happened in so many weeks. It is only 5 years ago, but it feels like two lifetimes ago already. I guess this is because I made so many different steps and pathways in between, but on the other hand...there are so many feelings there which I would rather forget about than think about more than once a year.