I Survived Hurricane Milton and All I Got Was This Red and Purple Paper Chain
And a bad case of not wanting to do anything
I’m not sure if any of you still remember the hurricane called Milton that hit Florida a few weeks ago, but since I was (somewhat) directly affected, I figured I should post about it. Even if I am really late.
I would’ve gotten to it sooner but I was busy lost all motivation.
To be fair, there was the whole storm thing and the kids being off school for like six days (including weekends and a holiday), and I did get sick with some apparently non-Covid virus that made me want to sleep for several hours every morning after the kids did finally go back to school. (I mostly did sleep for several hours every morning… in fact, I should probably say “do sleep for several hours” because I’m kind of still doing it.)
Anyway, I’m begrudgingly back to trying to do things other than laundry and food prep and sleeping so here we are.
My house is about ten miles north of downtown Orlando and the late change in Hurricane Milton’s forecasted track brought the center of the storm across the state far enough to our south that we missed the worst of the winds. Milton, once a terrifying category 5 hurricane, also fell apart rapidly just before landfall which was a relief and also very relatable for me personally. Falling to pieces at the first sign of humans is kind of my entire brand.
I’ve lived in Florida my entire life so the hurricane experience and routine are extremely familiar. And as global warming continues to exacerbate these natural disasters, the gallows humor that I and I think many Floridians employ to cope with the uncertainty of it all continues to flourish. I don’t mean to be flippant or callous. I understand lives are lost and destroyed every time a hurricane hits and it is truly heartbreaking, but I tend to take things in stride. I joke about being doomed because odds are at some point I will in fact be doomed. It will be my turn to suffer. As Hurricane Helene showed us, even if you live in what feels like a safe place geographically, everyone is at risk.
The days leading up to a hurricane’s arrival are in many ways worse than the storm itself. There’s this slow and inexorable build-up. Saying it’s like seeing a wave form in the ocean is probably a bit too on the nose, but yeah, it’s a lot like that.
About three or four days out, I start obsessively checking the hurricane models online and texting my friends that we’re all going to die. My brother is like a pseudo-meteorologist at this point so I lean on him for technical analysis of track forecasts and storm intensity predictions. We joke that whatever model run is coming up next (the main weather models release information every 6 or 12 hours) will be key to determining our fate. We oscillate between “we’re doomed” and “we’re in the clear” at least four times per day.
Two days out I typically head to the grocery store to buy whatever water is left on the shelf and some chocolate chip muffins. This time I scored two tiny bottles of Life Water which seemed pretty appropriate considering our lives were hanging in the balance once again. The price on the shelf was partially rubbed off so for some reason I guessed they were $0.49 each. Turns out they were $2.49 each but if that 7 ounces of water helped save my family’s life somehow it was still a steal. The supply of muffins was aplenty, which was a relief because I’d rather throw myself in front of a Cat 5 hurricane than tell my daughter we were out of muffins.
One day out I typically spend a lot of time doing two things: wondering how the storm hasn’t arrived yet because it seems like I’ve been waiting my entire life, and moving patio furniture around on our small back porch. I carefully consider things like should I move the furniture into the garage? Tip it over on the ground to lower the center of gravity to decrease the likelihood of being blown about by wind? That makes sense, right? From a physics perspective? Cluster it together to provide some sort of safety in numbers situation? Ultimately, I decide to leave everything in place because nothing matters.
I have a look around the yard and imagine the wind somehow grabbing the garden hose that is always just lying there in the dirt. It would whip back and forth. Beating the ground and the house and maybe the AC unit like a crazed serpent. I leave the hose where it is. I’d kind of like to see that, actually.
My wife had to work at the hospital during the storm so she was gone overnight. As hurricanes always seem to do, Milton made landfall after dark so we got the worst of the weather in the very early morning hours when we couldn’t see what was going on outside. This adds to the intrigue. The kids and I hung around all night, eschewing bedtime routines and eating hurricane snacks late into the overnight hours. The kids were intent on squeezing in as much electronics time as they could before the power went out (it never did) and I was intent on not lying on their bedroom floor for hours while they tried to go to sleep.
Before we morphed into house cats and slept on couches and floors and the random bed, my daughter and I managed to make this paper chain.
I’m pretty excited about how it turned out. She insisted that we hang it on the wall and I agreed that was the right idea. Unfortunately, because we used that blue tape you’re supposed to use on walls when you’re painting, the chain wasn’t structurally sound. It lost its integrity within hours.
The plan now is to leave it hanging like that for at least the next 6 to 9 months. It really ties the room together.
Hurricanes tend to be loud and at least a little scary and Milton was no exception. However, our last hurricane experience (Irma, I believe) was decidedly louder. We had some gusty winds this time including a few big ones and a couple of bumps on the roof from falling limbs, but overall, the night was okay. As far as I know, everyone slept at least for a few hours and we woke up the next day ready to carry on with our mundane existence. As I mentioned, the power was still on, so my kids were ecstatic.
Here is the extremely minor damage. Luckily (or unluckily for me?) the trampoline barely survived.
We were fortunate to avoid any major catastrophe. I felt a little bad about it because I had pretty much promised my friend
I would have a story for his newly rebranded newsletter (Disaster Stories), but all I ended up with was a tree limb on my trampoline net. Also, the Wawa I get my coffee from was out of Irish creme for like a week at least so I had to drink my coffee plain. That is basically a disaster in my world but I’ve learned to cope.After the long days off school and the few hours spent cleaning up the yard (the children all handled saws and other sharp items and nobody lost any fingers… win!), we’re basically back to normal. The neighborhood kids are still asking me to bounce them on the trampoline like we didn’t just survive a hurricane. Kids can be tiresome.
Anyway, that’s my not-so-harrowing hurricane story. I’m sure we’ll be back for another round next year (if not sooner).
I was very grateful to be featured on a couple of amazing Substacks by
and the last couple of weeks. In case you missed these stories when they first came out, here they are…
Speaking of disasters… don’t forget to check out my books.
Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music. And yes, there is high school football.
Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey
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This was hilarious, despite the near-impending doom of it all. So glad you’re all safe.
I, too, have struggled with the paperchain-painter tape relationship.