The Beauty Found in Crisis Mode

I am currently living through a “Coronacane” (that’s a pandemic mixed with a hurricane – trust me, it’s not a drink you want).

After months of being isolated in our homes, which in retrospect is not nearly as bad as what is currently happening, we had finally returned to school and felt some normalcy in our lives. That was quickly halted when overnight Tropical Storm Sally developed into a Category 2 Hurricane and turned its eye right for Gulf Shores.

So here we are completely unprepared, out of power, out of gas, and regrettably, an unstocked fridge. Yet, our deep freezer was fully packed with meat (thank you to my doomsday prepper of a husband). As the hours passed, the edible food started dwindling as our fridge warmed and our freezer defrosted oh so quickly with no way to cook it.

Add on my kids are driving me nuts with “nothing to do”. The dog keeps barking at the fictional wind-robbers. The heat is rising and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why we never bought a generator.

So what do we do?

During the storm, we watched out the windows as the wind pulled and pushed against our sturdy trees, many buckling under the pressure and crashing to the ground. Gusts of wind whipped down the street, tossing our heavy porta potty (because PS we are currently doing construction in our backyard) up and down the street like a hockey puck.

At that moment, all you can do is watch and pray that when the storm passes, everything is going to be okay.

Once the skies cleared and the wind died down, I was outside picking up limbs and checking on neighbors. During those first 24 hours, I found myself standing around feeling overwhelmed with all that needed to be done. Then it became all about priorities, such as taking a jaw-saw to a neighbor to cut the tree limbs about to take out their roof, pulling out old tarps to cover leaking roofs, or over to another to help get a large limb off a power line. Taking it inch by inch and the yard limb by limb, we slowly started to pick up the devastation surrounding our home and neighborhood. And we didn’t even get the worst of it. Some friends had their houses underwater, trees crashed through their lives, roofs ripped away, while others had to evacuate in the night, literally running for their lives as the waters rose over their homes.

As we approached the 48-hour mark, still without power, food reaching its final moments (along with my sanity), humid air thick on our dirt-covered bodies, we finally had to concede that this is far worse than we expected.

Suddenly, a pandemic didn’t matter. 

We opened our doors to call our neighbors and friends saying, “Hey, we have food, come to us”. Just as we were opening our arms to our friends and neighbors, so did they. Through the devastation, I started to see the deeper beauty of my community. All over, people were putting their own needs aside for those of strangers.

That is what happens in crisis mode.

In crisis mode, it doesn’t matter if your house is spic and span to receive friends. Everyone understands that there’s dirt on your floors, dirty dishes in your sink, and your kids haven’t bathed in three days (Oh! Did I forget to mention we don’t have water either!).  As we pulled every edible thing from our fridge, I didn’t worry about how I was presenting the food or even if it tasted good. Everyone’s just happy to share a meal together.

We’re happy to be alive.

Because at the end of the day, as a community, we can clean up the debris, we can rebuild our homes, and school and business will resume. We will make it through this together. In crisis mode, that’s the mindset you have to have, or you are never going to make it through. We all need our village and our community during this time.

No one can go through crisis mode alone.

My deepest gratitude goes out to those that left their homes immediately to help. Those that are first responders, police officers, and in this case, our Gulf Power men and women. We are all so grateful that you were willing to leave your own families and personal needs to help others.

Even my young children (five and six years old) were out raking the backyard with me the other day. They understood that this is the time to step up and help no matter what else they really want to be doing. Our small neighborhood block came together in such a way these past couple of days, that even when we lost power again, we didn’t panic. Instead, we released our “bored” children into the street, handed out flashlights as the sun disappeared, and gather together. We knew we had each other.

In this time, I’ve been able to instill in my children the importance of community, supporting one another, and sacrificing for our friends and neighbors.

We are all in this together.