This was written Sunday, 9/2, but we did not get internet back until recently, so I am just posting it a week later.
Well, I feel that we have experienced a New Orleans rite of passage this past week. Against the pleas of family, we decided to “shelter in place” for Hurricane Isaac rather than evacuate. I feel it necessary to blog about why we decided to stay.
Last weekend, talk of Tropical Storm Isaac turning into a hurricane became serious. This year I work in Plaquemines Parish, which you have probably heard of on the news recently. The southern part of this parish experienced total devastation during Katrina, and many of the teachers and families of my students lost everything. Understandably so, they do not take hurricanes lightly. On Sunday, when they could see that Isaac was making its way towards us, they cancelled school Monday through Wednesday. The seminary did not decide until Monday afternoon to cancel its classes Tuesday through Thursday, which did not give us much time to decide if we should leave or stay as they were predicting Isaac would make landfall on Tuesday.
When that happened, Josh and I talked through our options. We could evacuate to Georgia to stay with family or go to Mississippi to stay with friends. Either way, it was spending a lot of hours in the car and a lot of money on gas (which, if you remember our summer, was not something we really wanted to repeat). Isaac was supposed to only be a Category 1, come in Tuesday, and be gone Wednesday, so we decided to stay and weather the storm!
On Monday, Josh and I read up on hurricane readiness, filled our refrigerator with water, our pantry with nonperishables, and our freezer with ice. We got our candles ready and charged our cell phones and laptops. Tuesday was a little vacation. We slept in and spent the day cooking and baking in order to use all of our food that might go bad. I joked about not knowing that I would gain weight during a hurricane!
Tuesday night, while we were asleep, we lost power. We woke up Wednesday to a dark apartment, so we opened the doors and windows and listened to the falling rain and wind. It sounded liked the waves at the beach. We played Monopoly by candlelight (Josh won) and ate the rest of our cooked food. Isaac had slowed down and didn’t really hit New Orleans until Wednesday afternoon. We were good waiting it out.
Wednesday, the hurricane hit and there was a lot of rain and wind, heavier than a typical summer storm. On Thursday, Isaac moved out, the wind and the rain calmed, and with it, our breeze. Our cell phone service never died, so we were able to talk to family and friends and let them know we were ok. (We would take turns keeping our phones on and charge them in the car when necessary. We also rationed out our laptop power and watched movies on them every night.) We drove around campus and surveyed the damage. There was a small amount of flooding (not much more than when there is a heavy rain here), and most of the water was already receding. There were a lot of smaller branches all over, and about ten trees had fallen, but there was no major damage to buildings or cars. Overall, campus had survived pretty well!
Thursday night was warm, and when we woke up Friday, it was hot and humid! Josh went to the coffee shop he works at to help them set everything back up. That was the first time either one of us had left campus. When he came back, I was sitting on the couch “grumpy” (as he called it). The air was so warm and still. And without a water heater, our showers were ice cold, which should have felt good, but I didn’t like going from sweating to shivering. I’d had to clean out our fridge and freezer and throw away food, which aggravated me. And the smell was not pleasant either! All in all, I was not in a good mood. Josh kept assuring me that the power would be on soon. We’ve realized for future reference that Day 3 is my breaking point without power! (I’m more high maintenance than I thought!)
That night was pretty miserable, so we woke up Saturday morning and headed out to somewhere, anywhere with air conditioning! We used a gift certificate we had to Cracker Barrel for breakfast (thank you, Nana!), walked around Wal-Mart, went to the mall, ate some FroYo, stopped by Target. We kept checking back on campus and found power trucks working on the lines! We came back and joined some other seminarians, sitting in the grass, staring at the men in the bright yellow vests, hoping that somehow our desperate stares, fanning, and wiping of our brows would help them turn the power on faster! :) At 6:45, one of the men hollered, “Go inside and check your lights!” They were on! And the air conditioner! And the oven! And the refrigerator! And the TV! And the washer and dryer! And the hot water in the shower! All the little things we take for granted. It was thrilling!
Tonight at church we sang the lyrics, “And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?” A hurricane? And that’s when it hit me. God was with us through all of this. I never felt in danger. I didn’t lose anything. I didn’t feel liked I “needed” God. But He was there, and He did protect and spare us. I thought that not having AC for four days was horrible, but for some Isaac was truly horrific. The city itself was spared, but the surrounding areas have experienced tragedy yet again. I’ve already heard of one teacher at my school who lost everything in Katrina and has now lost everything in Isaac. People had trees come through their roofs, flooding, and more. “What can stand against?” Nothing; not even hurricanes. Yet it’s still so hard to understand the “why.” Why does this happen? I’m not writing to answer that question, but to simply acknowledge that this storm has changed my perspective in some ways. I will be thankful for all the little things that I take for granted . . . at least for a little while. And then God will send something else to remind me that he is taking care of us and watching over us, and that I’ll always “need” Him.
Tomorrow we are doing disaster relief work in the city. I’m sure I’ll have an even bigger perspective then of all that has happened. For now, please pray for the thousands who are still without power, the areas where the flooding is not expected to go down for weeks, and those who cannot afford the repairs that are needed to their houses or businesses. Love to you all. We’ll keep you posted.
