Idalia Doesn't Rhyme With the Onion

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

-2 Corinthians 4:8-9 ESV

29 August 2023

Well, here we go again.

This time around there's something precious smack in the middle of that cone: Wyldswood.

They're still calling it a likely Cat 3 at landfall, but that water's so warm that some models are starting to suggest a Cat 4. Over 130 miles an hour.

The farm is maybe a dozen miles from the shoreline, with a long shallow leading to that lovely little stretch that will make the storm surge more like a small tidal wave. I wonder what becomes of the multimillion dollar Gulf front estates that had begun to mushroom along the shore. A better question: what becomes of our little Nikki, the golf course bartender who's been rebuilding a home her boyfriend inherited down by Keaton Beach. It's almost assured they have no insurance for this.

George and I messaged yesterday, with me rather helplessly expressing my desire that he and Beth get out of there. Folks in those parts haven't seen a real hurricane in decades. The sights and smells and chaos here five years ago are still acute in my mind, and I try to impart to him how serious I am about him leaving, about P and me finding him a place to stay over here until the dust settles. I hope he takes it to heart.

Tomorrow afternoon I was scheduled to fly up to Asheville to pick up the Mighty Columbia and fly it home, assuming the part arrives on time for it to be repaired. I'll stick to that plan, then fly home early Thursday morning and start driving east as soon as I get back here. Landfall tomorrow's looking to be mid-morning. There'll likely be no way to get back home to the farm any sooner than that.

This morning began with the pre-disaster, mundane checklist we here on the Gulf Coast know all too well. Loved ones have an escape plan (or at least one's been suggested). Insurance pulled up here on the computer, along with a quick review of how to start the claims process. USAA was nice enough to message me yesterday with a link to start all that on my phone. They know what's coming.

A verbal "lightning within five miles" warning just blasted over the speakers across the bay at Tyndall. This storm is part of what woke me up this morning, what's making the air so damned sticky right now as I type this on the patio. Usually the day before the storm tends toward cool and dry and a little breezy. I bet it's that way back under our canopy oaks this morning. I wonder if Gus and Other Gus sense in their goose viscera what's coming?

The acute risk that our beloved farm will be leveled in the next twenty-four hours brings inevitable talk between P and me regarding how much more of this climatological chaos we can take. We're too old to rebuild again. And who'll insure us? What little wealth and vocational success I've accumulated in these six decades mostly lies here along this lovely stretch of coast. It's not something that can be uprooted and easily transferred somewhere else.

But now that the second horseman of this Twenty-First Century Apocalypse, Jim Cantore, has arrived hot on the heels of the first horseman, if that fat orange bastard could prop himself up on a horse (visions of an apocalyptic 45 arriving on the whirlwind in a golf cart, petulantly waving a six iron at us), what is one to do? I feel like the Jewish surgeon or business owner arriving on the docks in New York City in 1939 with whatever he could shove in his suitcase as the SS broke out his windows back home in Dusseldorf. It's not quite that bad, but I don't have enough runway left to rebuild anything near what will be lost here.

Even so, we may find ourselves in that vulnerable place, starting a new life I couldn't have imagined when I first came and fell in love with this water I'm watching lap the rip rap below me. Thirty-two years is a long time; things change. Time to show a little courage to go along with that flat, dazed look I try to play off as stoic instead of just lost.

But now I'll pull myself into something a little more formal than this t-shirt and pajama bottoms, and lean into a mediation of an HOA dispute over things that don't seem all that important this morning. At least no one's shooting at us.

Selah.