Only my granite devotion to serving you, Dear Reader, has
forced me from the task urged upon me by the governor, the head of the National
Meteorological Service, and various officials charged with protecting my person
and property. Even now, the governor is speaking—or trying to, since even the
people who voted for him admit: he’s just slightly better than W in the
speaking department. So what’s up?
Right—for those whose geography of the Caribbean has faded a
bit, the four islands south of Florida are (from left to right) Cuba, Jamaica
(south of Cuba), Hispaniola, and finally Puerto Rico. OK—so what is that
menacing thing, its hour come round at last, slouching towards Puerto Rico to
destroy?
Enter Tropical Storm Gonzalo, which formed last week, and
which will arrive in 12 to 24 hours. Conversely, maybe it will not arrive, but
slide 50 to 100 miles or so to the east of us. No one knows, of course, but
every local channel has been obsessed with the storm since yesterday. And what
guy would pass up the chance to look governorly and to issue statements urging
us to maintain ourselves in a state of calm but acute awareness as the atmospheric
phenomenon approaches? Oh, and under no circumstances should you LOWER YOUR
GUARD!
The effect of the constant iteration—as well as seeing
photos like the one above—tends neither to produce calm or awareness. Because I
have no idea what the photo above is actually measuring: wind? Water vapor?
Dust particles?
The point of the picture is to stir up anxiety, because what
doesn’t the picture tell you? Well, the storm is barely a category one, most of
the rain is expected to fall in the ocean, and anyway, there’s a big mountain—el Yunque—on the east coast, which will
deflect the hurricane. So for all of us in the San Juan area? Consider closing
your windows!
I’ve lived here for almost twenty-five years, and how many
“alerts” or “warnings” have I experienced? Estimate—probably sixty or seventy.
Right, so how many hurricanes?
Maybe two, only one of which qualified—since my definition
of a hurricane is that you’re sitting in the dark, listening to a sound I
cannot define. It’s actually a combination of sounds: the howling upper winds,
thunder, the sounds of things being wrenched off buildings, the sound of things
slamming into buildings—yours included—and the worst, for me, the sound of the
doors first rattling, then shaking, then violently pounding. The demonic force
wants in….
And if it did? If some killer hurricane with winds of 165
miles per hour came directly at our house—an atmospheric drone, perhaps—and the
contents of our house—all the painting, plates, chairs, ornamental
objects—became the most lethal flying objects?
Raf and I have it figured out: we’d leave, and then sit in
the staircase leading to the second and third floor—boring but perfectly safe….
The hurricane presents a series of paradoxes. Most people
fear the wind, but by far the greatest damage is the water. Most people dread
the storm, but the worst period is afterward, when people up in the mountains
are cut off for weeks, when you haven’t taken a hot shower in days, when you
may have to wait months before your electricity agrees to come back, all the
while watching your neighbor across the street—connected to a different
line—drinking ice cold beer and watching his 60-inch flat screen.
The storm will be hyped, the shelters will be opened, and
people living—often illegally—in the flood plains will come trooping in. This
is a problem, since we are a gregarious bunch, and who wouldn’t like to hang
all day, chatting with your friends and neighbors, complaining about the
inefficiency, and accepting three free meals a day! The problem, one social
worker told me, was not to get the people into the shelters, but to get them out.
Add to this the fact that today is Columbus Day, which some
people are celebrating—OK observing—OK, getting the day off. So now we’ll have
a really long weekend!
The penultimate paradox? The hurricanes that don’t come
inflict almost more damage than those that do. Because if you have bought into
the hysteria, fought for the last bottle of water, snatched the last can of salchichas—chicken sausages, and quite
tasty they are—from your neighbor’s hands, and endured the annoyance of waiting
for twenty minutes in line to pay for all of this, well, how would you feel
when it only rained for ten minutes, and the wind never picked up?
You should be relieved. But you’ve been on high alert for
two or three days—and now what? While all of this nonsense was going on, did
anyone cover you at work? Answer your emails?
And everybody will be in the same position, which means even
if you do manage to enter your job with a smile on your face, it will be eroded
by 10AM.
But if the storm comes and you lose your roof? Well, no work
for you, since you are waiting for FEMA to come and chatting with your
neighbors and drinking cold beer because he has a generator and the trade off
is that you’ll have his noise and he’ll give you cold beer. Then FEMA will
eventually drift by, you’ll get the blue tarp for your roof, as well as,
eventually, a check. Which means that you now have the down payment for a new
car: autos sale went through the roof after the last hurricane.
Finally, the hurricane restores the inherent nature of the
people here. A student once told me that after Hurricane Georges, all the
neighbors got together, cooked on gas stoves together, shared food and stories,
laughed, and enjoyed whatever breeze came by. The stars—rarely seen in Puerto
Rico—were blazing brightly, since the entire island was dark. And so they
passed several weeks, until one night—BAM all the lights came back on! People
cheered, and everybody headed back home, eager to be in air conditioning and
watching TV.
But my student?
She was at her window, looking at her neighbors—most of whom
she hadn’t known well before the storm—in their homes, and wishing…
…they would all come back out again!
