October 17, 2024
By Michele Miller
What’s What New Port Richey
It’s been a sorry stretch these past few weeks. A hectic frenetic span from start to whatever is coming next that’s been yanking at all ranges of emotions and leaving us exhausted.
That’s what I’m hearing from others. What I’m feeling in these “after days” of weary woe.
Collectively we’ve been through a lot.
All the frantic prep as Milton gained strength to a cat 5 during his mighty trek across the gulf that had many of us thinking incredulously, “Wait – What?! We’re doing this again?!”
Then the decisions. Wait it out at home or at a local shelter or hit the road with your suitcases, go-box filled with your important documents and whatever precious things you could manage to pack up as Milton took a last-minute tick closer to Tampa Bay.
The fretful wondering about what you would come back to.
The second-guessing about whether the beloved, grand live oaks shrouding the property would hold or tumble and pierce the roof while fierce winds whipped and howled and branches and whatever else was flying through the air slammed against the house or landed on the roof with a thud – one after another.
Okay, maybe we should have left even though we’re not in an evacuation zone.
The fearful adrenaline that lingers in the aftermath threading through common conversations – “In all my years here in Florida this was the worst.”
“Will insurance cover this?”
“Whew! But what will my rates be next year?
“Will my insurance company bail? “
“How do I fill out these damn FEMA forms?”
Sliding back into the routine isn’t easy, even for the fortunate among us who emerged bleary-eyed out of our homes the morning after a sleepless, frightful night to survey the damage and discover we’d come out of it okay.
Daybreak gave way to calmer winds and intermittent gusts and the sound of whirring chainsaws and generators and chirping birds complaining about the missing feeder stashed in the garage lest it become a flying missile.
There were branches to pick up. Leaves to rake. A few trees felled by the fierce winds in the neighborhood that managed to land advantageously.
Then the river waters rose, as some say, “like never before” even among those who remember the floods from Tropical Storm Debbie in 2012.
More flooded homes and businesses. More heartache. More headaches.
Now comes the task of piecing of it back together knowing full well there will be visible and intangible cracks in our community that will need filling, sealing and support long into the future.
Today feels like a slog just putting one foot in front of the other as we tread our paths to whatever normalcy that can be mustered.
I feel a bit of that each day as a neighbor defiantly puts up their 12-foot giant-sized Skelly and others follow suit placing out pumpkins, ghosts and witches and “Happy Halloween” signs amid the piles of debris that line the streets awaiting pick-up.
On another day we venture out to visit the local deli to make a picnic with the grandkids who are with us because the power was late to come on at their home in Tampa and they’re still out of school while their parents are getting back to the business of work.
We’re there for the chicken salad on rye and the homemade mac and cheese that’s “today’s special” – happy to see their regulars still stopping in even though menu options are limited because the power was out for awhile.
Later I order a couple of tickets to Rocky Horror that’s playing at the Richey Suncoast Theater because there’s a first-time for everything and I’m told it’s a lot of fun which is in high demand these days what with the gasoline shortage over.
I get back to walking the neighborhood. My evening yoga classes. And when the weather warms up again, I’ll be back at the pool. Back to the routine.
Even so, I’m thinking we keep the hurricane kit stocked and handy and hold off on hanging my mother’s antique lamp back up till the season is over. Maybe put it up with the Christmas tree in December.
Just in case.
Now onward.
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