If Miami is any indication, Katrina will be tough on the Delta
It’s almost an afterthought now, but Katrina went from tropical storm to hurricane in the space of a few hours on Thursday night right off the coast of Miami.
When I went home from work at 3 p.m., I was expecting a light wind and a few rain squalls. By 9 p.m., I was chasing patio furniture around my back yard. I finally threw it into the pool so it wouldn’t fly away like the house in The Wizard of Oz.
We got more than 12 inches of rain in a few hours. Some of it came through new holes in our roof to pour into our bedrooms. The night was spent strategically placing buckets under streams of running water leaking through the ceiling. The lights went out early, and the house became a steam bath.
The next morning, Miami looked like a war zone. Trees had fallen on at least two cars on my street. 100-foot-tall trees were blocking intersections. No stoplights were working. We spent all day Friday and Saturday cleaning up our yard and helping neighbors. I was the only one on my block with a gas-powered chain saw, so we were busy.
It’s difficult to describe just how hot it is in Miami, especially without air conditioning. It’s usually in the low-90s during the day, but it is often so sticky that you are already sweating by the time you walk from your air-conditioned house to your air-conditioned car. Imagine that walk without air conditioning, and you have an idea how uncomfortable it can be to live without electricity here. Almost everybody in Miami passed at least a few nights without electricity over the weekend.
Imagine going to bed every night in a sauna. You don’t sleep. You toss and turn in a pool of sweat. Your kids are cranky and unhappy and bored. There is nothing cold in the house because your refrigerator stopped working five days ago. No milk, no ice, no cheese, no fruits and vegetables (a lot of the food that is left is covered with fruit flies, mold and worms). There is no garbage pickup because all garbage trucks are busy elsewhere, so your front yard is filled with rotting rubbish.
You would go shopping, but most of the grocery stores are closed. You would get gas for your car but most of the gas stations are closed.
And think about the bugs. You have to leave the windows open so you can get a breeze, but of course many air-conditioned homes don’t have screens. Your house fills with mosquitoes, cockroaches and flies.
So, you basically sit around your house trying to find the energy to clean up the garbage around you. Forget about going to work. Your work is finding food and/or ice for your family or gas for your car.
Over the weekend, the high priests and elders in my ward visited as many families as possible to assess the damage. Many were without power, but nobody was seriously hurt.
One of the people in worse shape was one man I home teach named Russell Brothers. Brother Brothers (he loves to be called that) lives on a boat in Biscayne Bay near Coconut Grove in Miami. He has one sailing boat which is his primary residence. Attached nearby was another smaller boat he used for storage. He makes his living as a massage therapist, and he stored his massage equipment in the second boat. The hurricane destroyed his second boat and most of the equipment on it. He estimates damage at $3,000.
Brother Brothers spent Thursday night trying to save his boats while 10-foot waves crashed around him. He was nearly cut in two by a tie line. Finally, the boat he was on broke free and took him to shore, where he huddled in the mangroves until the storm ended.
Two other people living on boats were killed in the storm. A total of nine fatalities have been counted so far.
Note to self: living on a boat is not nearly as romantic as it sounds.
It’s worth noting that the situation for people in the delta will be hundreds of times worse. Katrina hit New Orleans as a category 4 hurricane, which is the same as Hurricane Andrew. While it was uncomfortable in Miami after Hurricane Katrina, the delta is certain to be a complete disaster area.
So, what can you do to help?
1. Pray
2. Pay your tithing. The Church is usually one of the first humanitarian groups to respond. The Church has 18-wheelers filled with relief supplies that are probably on their way to New Orleans as you read this. The assistance goes directly to the people who need it.
3. Think about volunteering your time for hurricane cleanup in the delta in the weeks ahead. It is difficult to overestimate how much this is appreciated by the people sitting in what used to be their homes surrounded by garbage. The Church organizes parties of people who travel to areas affected by hurricanes. Last year I volunteered for cleanup after the hurricanes in Florida and it was very worthwhile. Bring your chainsaws and camping equipment. And your bug spray.
