Robert Root

 

Thursday, September 29, 2022: 8:05 AM, the power still out, I write by hand, expecting to copy it to my laptop sometime later. We sensed Hurricane Ian's presence throughout the night, its winds bouncing through the trees. Rain stopped early this morning and, though still high and windswept, the stream that rose well onto its east bank recedes slowly toward its regular channel. I count thirty-five ibises pecking along a stretch of the golf course.

 

A bright stretch of cloudless sky briefly shines in the distance, closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Trees shake more or less calmly. A tree limb smashed a bedroom window in our daughter's Sarasota home, half an hour's drive south of us, making them hunker down in a windowless hallway for part of the night. They were somewhat closer to Ian's landfall around Fort Myers, their night likely more fraught than ours. They've emailed us that their power's back on, clean-up proceeding, roads around them still too dangerous to drive, but they're all safe. Our landlady reports that outage here is too widespread to restore locally, and though the coast from St. Petersburg to Naples is in rough shape, Tampa is mostly unaffected. Ian stormed northeast toward Orlando and the Atlantic. I haven't yet learned about its impact on coastal islands near us.

 

From the lanai, we see branches and limbs deposited by the surging stream as it receded lining the opposite shoreline. Formerly exposed marshes further south have yet to resurface, but the stream should be back to normal in a few days. In our parking lot an elderly man brushes debris off his windshield and sweeps away leaves and branches that accumulated around his car. Nearby, an older couple packs up their station wagon to retreat somewhere with electricity.

 

A neighbor tells us her brother-in-law down the street has a working generator and we follow her past yards where people saw and rake and pile debris and take down window covers. We chat idly while he charges Sue's laptop and phone, our neighbor's friend's laptop, and an appliance of his own. Back at our condo, we check out fallen trees at the north end of our parking lot, directed there by someone whose window was broken by one collapsed tree and who owned one of the three cars it landed on. Part of the tree rests on the wall of the complex, two windows on each of the four floors visibly damaged; the pavement at its base still clings to it.

 

Walking out across the golf course, we continually discover fallen trees, cracked trunks, and hanging limbs. Maintenance crews will need several days to clear the landscape. At least fifty white ibises and five sandhill cranes now patrol the grounds. More than a half dozen crows drift down to pick up what look like popcorn kernels outside our neighbor's lanai. We open all the blinds to let in as much daylight as we can, keep the refrigerator closed, make an uncooked supper meal of cheese and crackers.

 

Just before 8:00 PM, startling us as we read by battery-powered lanternlight on the couch, lights and audio abruptly cut off on Wednesday suddenly brighten and sound out. The dishwasher starts up, lamps brighten the kitchen, living room, one bedroom, and at least one bathroom. I shout, "Harry Lewis!" We don't get television or internet access yet, but we can read in bed by lamplight again and decide when to sleep.

 

September 30 and Beyond: Hurricane reminders abound: traffic lights out much of the way on a nerve-wracking ride to rent a car, other drivers not as cautious as ours; debris lining streets and sprawling across yards and roofs; our relief when neighborhood signals light up again; thronging vehicles waiting to turn into a still-open gas station; crowds of people restocking supplies at a still functioning supermarket that lost most refrigerated food. With further, safer mobility, we reach our kids' house secure on a street lined with trash bags, piles of tree limbs and furniture, and evidence of vigorous yard work. Online news reports, drone footage, personal videos, and photographs display broad swaths of damage elsewhere: flooded homes, demolished buildings, unsalvageable businesses, the collapsed Sanibel Island causeway, an 18-foot storm surge, desperate anguish of the suddenly homeless, over 119 deaths throughout the state, persistent restoration efforts of homeowners and neighbors.

 

The hurricane haunts me, but I've only been an inconvenienced bystander, a short-term visitor able to retreat from reminders. I won't live with it daily, like those who still walk or drive these streets and neighborhoods, like those longing to somehow restore their unexpected losses and escape their ominous memories. When we return next autumn, Hurricane Ian's memory will await us here; we'll be hoping that evidence of its presence will be harder to find.

 

 

September 28, 2022, Wednesday: 8:18 AM. I've likely been awake since 5:45 or earlier, unable to tell sleep from wakefulness these days. It's light enough to see outside where, on either side of the complex, thick rain and loud wind are persistent. The lanai screen is soaked, the stream behind us is already high (it rained all night), and a limpkin calmly eats along the shore on our side. We've checked various weather sites, like NOAA and Accuweather, and weren't reassured when learning Ian's landfall will be just northwest of Fort Myers, the highest storm surge likely to the southeast of it.

 

Today, meteorologists who thought Tampa Bay's water level might rise 3-6 feet now expect Ian to arrive as a Category 4 hurricane and sound disappointed it hasn't upgraded itself to Category 5. They now predict landfall just northwest of Fort Myers and claim Wednesday afternoon winds will reach 155 mph and storm surge a catastrophic 15 to 20 feet above normal tide level.

 

We keep doing what we regularly do. At the moment I'm typing this and Sue is tutoring online in Milwaukee from our Sarasota bedroom. She might not make it through the day. I just finished my morning coffee and photographed the stream through the lanai behind us without going into it. Yesterday we emptied the lanai except for the cumbersome round, glass-topped dining table and tall glass-shelved bookcase, cramming everything into a back bedroom corner. NOAA's Potential Storm Surge Flooding Map indicates by color coding the height of the flooding: blue is greater than 1 foot above ground, yellow greater than 3 feet, orange greater than 6 feet, red greater than 9 feet. Their image is advisory for five days. Some businesses posted a hopeful return to normal on Friday but others, like Mote Marine Aquarium and ABC Liquors, are taking a wait and see approach before reopening, uncertain how the storm will affect the physical buildings, whether repairs will be needed, whether power will have been restored.

 

This will be a long day, as tomorrow (and maybe the day after?) will likely be.

 

10:32 AM: The wind sometimes strengthens and thumps the lanai screen, as if urgently demanding attention. It's hard not to look up as the sound grows louder, hard not to worry whether the screen—and possibly the glass doors and windows that make up the interior lanai wall—will be sufficiently resistant. The trees beyond the stream tremble and shudder and shake all the while, often vigorously. The stream is not yet at flood stage but, as rainfall persists, it's getting closer. Sometimes, often, the wind is loud enough to drown out the sound of Sue's voice guiding her students on the internet. Lights in the condo occasionally flicker or fade slightly, then regain regular brightness. The woman from the corner unit just walked back and forth in front of our condo talking on her phone, the balconies above her keeping all but her feet dry.

 

12:17 PM: The stream's width and height have increased, spreading across the opposite shore, and the strengthening wind gusts keep generating white wave crests. Fiercer and fiercer. NOAA reports hurricane-force winds approaching the Florida coast near Sanibel Island, close to land near Fort Myers. Barrier islands—Sanibel and Captiva and Pine there, Siesta Key and Lido Key and Longboat Key offshore near us—are very low and slender, with no chance to slow the hurricane's ominous approach.

 

c. 5:00 PM. Hurricane Ian is a presence all through the day. We have an early supper for a change and continue reading pages from The Ink Black Heart aloud to one another, all the while being reminded by wind and sheets of rain that we're surround by storm. Then the electricity ceases abruptly: lights off, dishwasher off, sudden silence in the condo, only Ian sounding outside. For awhile we keep on reading by battery-powered lantern light, then quietly sit together on the living room sofa in deepening darkness until after 7:00. Before it becomes completely dark, we prepare for bed, then try to read our nighttime books there, Sue's by penlight, mine on Kindle. I give up before she does, somewhere around 9:00, an hour when we usually start reading, and try to rest without sleeping. We have ten hours of darkness to get through before daylight of some kind should return.

 

I try not to imagine what is happening outside. I am mostly sure we have safely barricaded ourselves in our rented apartment; we are likely far enough inland, likely far enough north of Ian's landfall, our daughter's family likely far enough from the coast, to be secure. Surely when daylight comes and, as forecasters keep predicting, the storm finally abates, we will be able to face the new day with relief.

 

 

On Friday, in Sarasota, we're warned online about a tropical storm on Florida's west coast potentially developing into a hurricane, hitting us most strongly midweek. We stock up on flashlights and batteries and foodstuffs that won't spoil if we lose refrigeration, hoping it will all be for nothing.

 

On Saturday, Tropical Depression 9 becomes Tropical Storm Ian. Weather forecasters trace routes it might follow, guessing strong winds and abundant rainfall might hit Sarasota directly on Wednesday. A neighbor tells us this condo complex is solid and substantial, built to hold up. We have three floors of condos above us; others extend on either side of ours. We're inland from the Gulf but counties listed as likely to be hit include Manatee, where we are, and Sarasota, where the kids are. I remember coastal sites we've visited: Venice, Osprey, Spanish Point, Sanibel Island (where I attended a writers' conference once), Captiva Island, and Fort Myers, Thomas Edison's house next to Henry Ford's house in Fort Myers Beach. We've strolled the beach on Siesta Key, dined in St. Armand's Circle, toured Mote Marine Aquarium, taken boat rides on Sarasota Bay. We're familiar with barrier islands offshore.

 

On Sunday, we walk the neighborhood on a familiar route, visit our kids at their home, and hear varying weather reports. One predicts a dip in the jet stream might pull the storm northward into the Panhandle or steer it into Florida's west coast. Tropical Storm Ian may be a hurricane then, cascading 4-8 inches of "extremely heavy rain," flooding low-lying street areas, rivers, and, most severely, coastal regions. Or maybe none of this will happen. It's a nice day.

 

On Monday, people in counties north of us around Tampa—Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando—are ordered to evacuate their homes. Schools and colleges there and in Sarasota and Manatee counties will close tomorrow, their buildings housing evacuees. A few years ago, Caroline, Tim, and the kids drove north to safety in Tennessee and returned to learn they hadn't needed to flee. Reports say Ian will attain Category 4 status just south of the Sarasota metro area. Promising support for residents, a Manatee County Administrator says, "Now is not the time to panic. But it is time to finalize your storm preparations." Having returned our rental car, we're now fully pedestrian. It's too late and too complicated to stay with the kids, who have boarded themselves up. It's unlikely we'll be flooded by a storm surge. Sarasota Bay is 5.1 miles from our condo complex, a 12-minute drive. The storm may not notice the distance.

 

I assemble flashlights, penlights, head lamp, lantern—they all work. An afternoon thunderstorm drenches the golf course behind us, soaks our lanai screens, and splashes on its tables. I move cushions indoors amidst very loud thunder. The rain ends and we plug in our computers again. Sue tutors online at 5:00 and we have dinner afterward. The stream behind us seems higher now, especially down near the bridge. We read The Ink Black Heart aloud while we have the chance before losing power. Electricity flickers off, then on, hinting at what's ahead. Accuweather still claims the hurricane will see "a fork in the road," and either way Tampa Bay might see 6-10 feet of storm surge. A loud warning on our iPhones claims the storm is 36 hours away, reassuring us the potential catastrophe is still on our way.

 

On Tuesday, on our morning walk, a Chinese woman tells us she's driving to Orlando to avoid the storm. Early reports suggest Ian won't flood our complex or the kids' neighborhood or our granddaughter's dorm in Daytona. In Manatee County, evacuation levels "based on hypothetical storm scenarios" indicating "the potential height of the saltwater inundation from storm surge" are announced and Mandatory Evacuation Orders issued for people in Levels A and B and Voluntary Evacuation Orders for Level C. Our daughter thinks we're in Level E. Manatee County Building Codes required homes built after March 2012 to sustain 150 mph winds on the coast. In the laundry room a long-time resident reassures me the buildings are solid and weather resistant. An old oak fell during Irma without damage to the complex. A storm beginning this evening will last through Wednesday into early Thursday. Newscasts are already getting excited about Ian's arrival in Georgia and the Carolinas. E. B. White noticed radio newscasts stop talking about Edna after it left Massachusetts and before it reached Maine, where he lived. I'm behaving toward Ian the way he did toward Edna, making random daily notes with no real certainty they will lead to anything more. In the early afternoon it's quiet on the golf course but before we retire, we're aware of stronger winds and heavier rainfall. We wonder what tomorrow will be like.

 

 

Wherever something potentially problematic happens in the country or in the world, our internet weather site posts plentiful links to reportage. Looking for news about torrential rainfall and potential flooding in Wisconsin (where I live) and Florida (where I'm visiting), I learned about flooding elsewhere in America—i.e., historic flooding in eastern Kentucky causing over 40 deaths; extensive flooding in Mississippi; severe coastal flooding in Alaska—and powerful flooding elsewhere in the world—floods in Italy causing 14 deaths; horrendous flooding in Pakistan causing 1,500 deaths; a historic typhoon in Japan causing millions of evacuations; a hurricane devastating Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Videos from cellphones and drones display a wide variety of inundations: communities underwater, roads washed out, homes deluged, people wading through viscous waters, rivers and lakes reaching ever higher levels and ever fiercer surges.

 

Everywhere I look, every part of the world is undergoing a wide range of climate problems. I follow the west coast weather frequently, to see what it's like where my son lives. In the southwest the challenge to the climate and to the lives lived there are the opposite of what my midwestern and southern relatives have been facing. They are confronted by the problem of drought. I've long been noticing the shrinking water levels in Lake Powell (the second largest reservoir in the US, now at its lowest level since it was first filled sixty years ago), and in Lake Mead, the Colorado River, the Great Salt Lake, all the most prominent locations that a massive population depends upon for electrical power and agricultural irrigation. Drought's impact on California, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Kansas, and Oklahoma has challenged crop production everywhere

 

We're not alone. The European Union has reported that the drought in Europe is "the worst the continent has experienced in 500 years." One source listed the Rhine, the Danube, the Tiber, the Po, the Elbe, and the Volga as rivers that are drying up and disrupting shipping. Another source reported that, due to extreme heat and as much as 60% less rainfall than customary, the Yangtze, China's biggest river, is so considerably lower that it makes commercial navigation impossible. News footage often shows freighters everywhere unable to carry cargo further than their initial entry port. The internet often shows side-by-side images taken a couple years apart that demonstrate how shrunken certain waterways have become, how much certain shorelines have lowered, how historic discoveries surprisingly occur because previously unknown ancient dwellings and long-hidden community sites (as well as more recent criminal activities) have been revealed at exposed lake and river bottoms. Some of that news, in itself interesting or intriguing, would seem more positive if not for the circumstances that brought it to light.

 

The extensive heatwaves contributing to the drought also set the stage for massively destructive consequences, particularly abundant and devastating wildfires. On September 19, the National Interagency Fire Center claimed that, in the United States, "ninety-five large fires and complexes have burned 902,574 acres in 9 states." Idaho had 38 large fires burning, Montana 27 large fires. Smaller fires abound everywhere, especially in the northwest and the southwest. The NIFC's 2022 year-to-date chart listed 51,169 fires consuming 6,789,438 acres—so far.

 

Wikipedia lists nineteen countries in Europe and around the Mediterranean battling wildfires, the most extensively affected principally Algeria, France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain, but including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, and others. The range of countries named suggests how persistent and widespread the fires have been. Heat waves contributing to the aridity and potential for wildfire have set record temperatures—115 degrees, 129 degrees—in many countries and caused major melting of previously impervious glaciers and mountaintop snowpacks. Antarctica, the Arctic Circle, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Dolomites—most of the locations we think of as permanently icebound all have appeared in videos of glacier loss and destruction, and melting ice contributes to rising sea levels everywhere. HT Tech reports online that NASA has displayed a view of the eastern hemisphere (Asia, Africa, Europe) showing what it calls a "HORRIFIC [the capital letters are theirs] heatwave on Earth as humans suffer unbearable conditions." It quotes Stephen Pawson, chief of the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, asserting that "this large area of extreme (and record breaking) heat is another clear indicator that emissions of greenhouse gases by human activity are causing weather extremes that impact our living conditions."

 

Based on what I scroll past on Facebook or news sites, everyone's overwhelming preoccupation is on efforts to deepen our self-absorption. But recognizing the expanding impact of weather and climate change would locate us more solidly on the actual planet, in the actual climate, and make us more aware of the future our world races toward, the one we pretend we can't change.

 

 

Notes: NASA shows HORRIFIC heatwave on Earth as humans suffer unbearable conditions

 

NPR Morning Edition: Where the Colorado River Crisis is Hitting Home (9/22/22)