Where were you when Hurricane Irma made landfall?
I was in South Florida – Broward County, to be exact, where one of the worst seen category 5 storm was set to make landfall. Never before had I heard of so many people fleeing for safety in other parts of the state or even heading out of the state, if possible. I had several friends who chose to evacuate for the sake of their family’s safety. Unfortunately, with my husband’s profession, evacuating too far isn’t often as option for us. Although, while preparing for this storm, I had numerous out of town family members reach out to us and often times beg us to evacuate. It was really sweet of them, and I was deeply touched. In fact, I remember, even my mother in law, who wasn’t planning to evacuate herself had strongly urged that I evacuate with the kids. I wasn’t going to take that chance. I knew the traffic conditions would be horrible, and taking the risk of traveling, for who knows how long, with three small kids and a nursing newborn, was impossible. If my husband wasn’t going, neither was I. We would hunker down, and make dua (prayer). I confess, there were plenty of times when I doubted myself. Was I making the right decision? I would do zhikr (pray) to calm my nerves and reassure myself that nothing on this earth can move without the will of Allah. If a calamity is destined for us, it will be to test our faith and make us stronger.
We had plenty of time to prepare and the storm did not take us by surprise. The national hurricane centers issued the hurricane watch and warning much earlier this time than I remember in previous years. It may have due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey (in Houston, Texas) only a couple of weeks earlier. The images from the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey was all too fresh in everyone’s minds, and it seemed that our leaders did not want a repeat of what happened only weeks earlier. Hurricane preparedness, at a state level, was the best I have ever seen.
As natives of Florida, we are accustomed to the hurricane shopping frenzy that occurs shortly after a hurricane warning is issued. The sight of empty shelves of grocery stores where water, bread, canned goods, diapers and baby formula or the mile long lines at the gas stations are all too familiar. However, now having a family of my own with four small children, it isn’t easy participating in those mad dashes to the many stores only to find one loaf of bread or one case of water. At the same time, having a proper stock up in case of an emergency is even more important now that we have four little munchkins relying on us to provide for them. There is of course the underlying faith that all is in the hands of Allah (Subhana wa ta’ala), however, as the hadith says, ” we must tie the camel, and trust in Allah”. In other words, we have to put in our effort to make sure we do what is within our means and then leave the rest to Allah.
So, in an effort to “tie my camel”, I went with my newborn, while the other children were still in school, to gather our hurricane supplies. I managed to get a couple cartons of UHT (Ultra High-Temperature pasteurization) milk that did not need to be refrigerated, some cereal, fruits and a couple cases of water bottles. However, all batteries, flashlights, bread, and most importantly, wing nuts were all sold out. The shelves seemed to be emptying much quicker than I have seen in all my years of hurricane shopping. Most probably, again, due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, a couple of weeks earlier. The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey had created such a panic amongst the masses. The shortages in water, food, plywood, and those notorious wing nuts though, were quickly met as the stores were rerouting trucks into our region and restocking the shelves, almost as fast as they were emptying. For the first time in my life, I witnessed store associates informing shoppers of when supplies would be restocked on their shelves. In previous years, this was unheard of. Once the shelves emptied, the items were not restocked until after the passing of the storm.
Since my husband had to work and I had a two month old newborn plus the other 3 kids who would tag along, my parents volunteered to stand in line for several hours to be able to get us the wing nuts for our shutters. We got the wing nuts just a few hours before curfew and were able to manage getting all of our shutters up, just in time. After the shutters were all put up, it was time to clean up the backyard. With only a couple of hours to spare, it was all hands on deck. By this time, both the hubby and the kids were also home, the winds had begun to pick up and there were scattered showers. The kids managed to bring inside just about every single one of the million (okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but trust me there were a LOT) planters into the garage.
Our home was under construction at the time of the storm, and much of the construction garbage was yet to be removed. We had stacks of tiles, the bathroom vanity, shower and faucet fixtures, plumbing pipes, paint cans, dry wall, baseboards, bathroom door, closet doors, and the list goes on. Thankfully, my husband and I not only managed to contain all the construction and backyard clutter in our garage, we also managed to somehow fit my van in there as well. Actually, it was all my genius husband, I just followed instructions.
By four o clock saturday evening, we were officially on curfew. Curfew was set Saturday evening up to Monday morning. It started to get dark and I was exhausted. In addition to our family of six plus our pet bird, we hosted both my parents and my in-laws as well as my brothers, cousin, and a lady from a local women’s shelter.
For dinner that evening, we had leftovers (heated up in the microwave), and a round of hot Indian tea for the elders. We all slept soundly that night, with the exception the few tornado warnings in our area. We would all gather in the predetermined safe zone in our mudroom, which is adjacent to the garage, as it was the only place on the first floor of our home without windows and big enough to fit all of us. We had put a couple of chairs there for the elders who couldn’t sit on the floor. The next morning, we enjoyed some pre-made homemade baked goods, and one round of hot tea before losing electricity. The moment we lost electricity, the fridge doors were officially closed with the exception of the two or three times that we carefully opened it to get out a carton of milk. Everyone snacked on the homemade baked goods and glasses of cold (sometimes semi-cold) milk. I had too many cartons of organic milk in the fridge that I was not willing to waste.
In the evening, when the brunt of the storm was gone and calmness had set in, a friend of mine messaged to inform me of how she was using her chaffing dishes and sterno (chaffing dish fuel) to heat up leftovers. Pure Genius, I thought! So, I attempted to do the same. Unfortunately, my chaffing dishes were trapped in between the Tetris arrangement in the garage. But, we did manage to get out the electric grill which was still in its original packaging. Unfortunately, none of us had the energy to figure out how to assemble the grill. So, between my brothers, my husband and I, we got out a few pieces of the grill and attempted to make some sort of makeshift stove using the sterno as our heat source. It was still quite windy outside, so one person had to hold the flashlight, while another held up the grill’s cover to shield the wind from blowing out the sterno, and ANOTHER person held up the pan to be heated over the sterno (we couldn’t find the grill portion to set on top which would’ve saved us some hassle) which was carefully placed inside the bottom dome of the grill unit (so that it didn’t accidentally roll over and cause a fire). It was quite a production.
Things got much easier the next day. Once the sun was out, the boys carefully took out the generator from the garage, brought it around to our backyard and hooked it up. We had electricity! kind of. My family had gone through one month of power loss during Hurricane Wilma almost a decade before. Having had that expereience, we wanted to make sure we were conservative with our resources. Only one power outlet was powered using the generator. Using a power surge with multiple outlets we powered up the refrigerator and a couple small appliances. The percolator made hot tea for everyone to enjoy throughout the day. The rice cooker, and electric griddle allowed us to prepare fresh pancakes for breakfast and rice for lunch. We heated up leftovers in the microwave and served them with fresh rice for both lunch and dinner. We also powered a couple of fans and of course charged up all the phones and backup battery packs. The rest of the days were spent very similar to this. During the day, we would use the generator to provide us just enough energy to cook up the meals, and at night we would use it to power up enough fans so that everyone could sleep comfortably. Thankfully, alhamdulillah, within just a few days our electricity was restored. Many friends and family did not have their electricity restored as quickly. So, we were very blessed. We reached out to all those we knew and offered to host them. My parents and my husband’s nieces were the only ones who took us up on the offer. They would spend the nights with us and the days working in their own home, cleaning up Irma’s aftermath. It took another week or two before they too got the electricity restored in their homes.
Alhamdulillah turns out we were well stocked and managed to survive the entire ordeal with very little property damage due to Irma’s last-minute turn away from us. Allah had spared us. Alhamdulillah. The days without electricity forced the device addicted men in my family to come together and enjoy quality conversations and board games. My kids loved the freedom to eat junk food and their mommy’s creative efforts to put some kind of warm food on the table.
Anyway, It was a crazy time, but we learned so much from the experience.
If you want to see the best in people, see them in the midst of a calamity. More often than not, it is during these times when families, friends, and neighbors and even random people come together for the sake of humanity. I guess this is why Allah sends us hardship. It isn’t to hurt us. It is to test our faith, and to bring us all closer together.
We vowed never again to wait till the last minute for hurricane preparedness. We made a list of all the items we should’ve had and took inventory of all the items we did have and used. … In the post to follow, I will share with you our Hurricane preparedness checklist.
