Storm Anxiety

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!