The Mean Season

So today is the start of hurricane season, '19, and my thoughts go back in time to those storms of yore, for my family.

I moved to Miami in '79, and my namesake storm, David, was threatening that first semester at UM. We had parties on campus, and stupidly put masking tape on windows, and the thing missed us.  No storms hit for another 13 years, and I started to agree with Hunter Thompson that storm experts, like Neil Frank, were just "hurricane junkies," who got excited about things that never really came.

Ha. As if. Fast forward to 1992 -- Wifey and I were in our second house in Kendall, with a three and a half year old D1 and six month old D2, and it appeared Andrew was coming. We had Grandma Sunny with us, and we kept her, as the forecasts showed it heading further North -- she lived in Delray. Well -- so much for that accuracy -- the damn thing was a direct hit over South Dade, and blew away the house around us.

It was truly a scary thing -- especially with the babies there. As the ceilings collapsed from rain where the roof was ripped off, I hustled us into my Mitsubishi Diamante in the garage -- thinking at least we'd have the car roof to protect us when the ceiling failed. We piled in -- Grandma Sunny, Wifey, and the Ds, with our dogs Midnight the Lab and Alfred the Spaniel on the floor outside the car. Nothing doing -- Midnight leaped inside, too -- and then we brought Alfred in as well, and were among the thousands with Bryan Norcross getting us through -- the true voice in the darkness, telling us when the eye would pass -- stay inside until the back end, etc...

As the sun came up, the worst had passed, and we were true survivors. But it was a true dividing line in our lives -- we spoke of "before" and "after" and meant Andrew. We moved three times over the next 18 months, and D2 took her first steps at a rented apartment on Brickell Key, and D1 went to pre school at Beth David, the same shul which welcomed another scared 4 year old in 1960 -- Wifey, newly arrived from Israel and speaking no English. D1 spoke it plenty, and coined the term we used about our house in SW 136 Terrace -- it was "mistroyed."

So Andrew was the only catastrophe, but during the storm season of 2005, we lost power twice -- after Katrina, and then later on again with Wilma, causing us to decamp to Coconut Grove for the first, and Wifey and the Ds to move to Atlanta for Wilma -- but there was only minimal damage.

And then there were only scares until '17, when Irma came. She had the decency to wait until D1 and Joey's big, Fat, Colombian wedding took place, and then caused the newleyweds, Wifey, me, and three dogs to high tail it to Atlanta.

We returned to massive tree damage, but only a few thousand in roof damage, and Wifey and I lived Downtown at the Langford Hotel and later in the Gables at the Hyatt, until power eventually came back.  Again -- no catastrophe -- just annoyance.

Our storm preparation is simple -- Wifey buys lots of waters, and I insist all family members never let their car gas tanks go below half full -- lest we need to beat a quick escape.

I have a generator, but have stopped keeping it current -- truth is, if anything of any size threatens, I plan to get out of Dodge.

A threatening storm is the worst time to be in Miami -- lots of tensosity around, to use my late friend Alan's wonderful neologism.

A benefit to NOT living too close to D1 and Joey is that, if a storm hits, likely it won't take aim at ALL of Miami Dade -- and if the hit is in the North part of town -- they can escape here, and if it hits in South Miami Dade -- we can escape there.

I truly hope this season is like last year -- no threats to us at all.  And instead of this type of hurricane, I can focus on my favorite Hurricane -- first game, in Orlando versus the Gators, is less than three months away...