One year ago today, I was inside one of the hurricanes to impact the United States of America during the 2017 Hurricane Season. Hurricane Irma struck the Florida Keys and then moved along Florida’s west coast, impacting the Tampa Bay Area and the Orlando area for example. However, there was another area that Irma impacted, and that was the South Florida metropolitan area. And this is where I tell my story about surviving a hurricane.
The saga of Hurricane Irma began in late August 2017, when a disturbance formed across the Eastern Atlantic Ocean. Few realised how quickly Irma would form from this disturbance into the extremely large system that she became. In less than 24 hours, Irma was upgraded from a Tropical Storm to a Category 3 hurricane, one of the quickest transformations in recorded history.
By the time that Hurricane Irma began impacting the Lesser Antilles, I was already making preparations for a direct hit on the South Florida metro area, since many models were suggesting that Irma would make a direct hit on Miami Beach. I prepared by stocking up on supplies to last a few days, such as non-perishable foods, bottles of water, and candles so that there would be light in the event that the electricity went out. At this moment, I felt terrified that the homie that I lived in would be no more by the end of the week, and I had visions of the house being completely destroyed, just like what happened a few weeks earlier with Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
Once the storm passed near the Turks and Caicos Islands, the odds of a hit on Miami Beach dropped dramatically, and I felt a slight sigh of relief. However, I did not let my guard down and kept my preparations for Irma”s arrival on the Sunday (10 September 2017). By Friday, the last of the preparations were completed: the window shutters were closed, and anything loose was brought inside the house, such as tables and chairs in the garden. Once that was done, I hunkered down and prepared for the worst.
On the Saturday, the wind and rain began, getting progressively stronger as Irma headed towards the coasts of Cuba as a dangerous Category 5 storm. The weather forecast explained that Irma was supposed to turn towards the North, however it was unknown when she was expected to turn towards Florida until the last minute. She turned North over Northern Cuba as a Category 4 system and moved slowly towards the Florida Keys. On Sunday morning, Irma made landfall on Cudjoe Key, just outside the town of Key West. Fortunately, almost all of the Key residents were evacuated onto the mainland before Irma’s arrival, and what was left after Irma’s wake was complete destruction.
Meanwhile in the metro area, conditions deteriorated until at around 11:30, most of South Florida was knocked out of power. This was the most scariest part of the hurricane, realising that there was no electricity for millions of residents of South Florida. It was at this point that some strange things began to happen. I could never forget the water in the toilet bowl moving around and being sucked inside the pipes when the winds were howling outside. My mum could never forget the doors bending and bowing in the extreme winds. It felt like the door was going to give way at any minute. Thankfully, the door never gave way.
When the sun set, it was an eerie sight to see South Florida so dark, where once was a busy night time scene, now desolate and empty. This was also the worst time of the hurricane experience, knowing that there was a dangerous system outside, sleep was not going to happen that night.
The next day brought a massive relief, although the winds were still strong, the skies brightened up and even more thankfully, the damage here was minimal. The fence blew down, and some roof tiles were damaged. Apart from that though, very little structural damage occurred in South Florida, the damage was mainly vegetation and some street sign damage. The same could not have been said though for the Florida Keys, which even now at the time of recording, some areas are still uninhabitable from Hiurricane Irma 1 year ago.
Life got back together relatively quickly, storm damage was cleaned up within a matter of days for the major thoroughfares, but took until November for the minor roads to be cleaned up. The electricity grid was mostly fixed within the week after the storm hit Florida. Life was beginning to return to normal, however Florida would never be the same again. What once was a feeling of invincibility turned into vulnerability after Hurricane Irma impacted almost the entire state of Florida, as well as numerous other Caribbean islands. The main take away from this is that I was extremely grateful that no major damage occurred from the storm, when it could have been a whole lot worse for many more people, especially where the storm impacted in the Florida Keys,
