While millions of coastal residents throughout Florida, and the Eastern Seaboard are still rocking and reeling from Hurricane Ian, the Florida Keys were mostly spared major damage or flooding. I’ve realized through all this — that most of my friends — are located in coastal regions. Not only in Florida, but all across the United States. I suppose the thing we have in common is the love of the ocean in general, and fishing in particular.
So, in recent years, there has always been somebody I know who was directly affected, or directly being affected, by hurricanes. Of course, my moving permanently to Marathon shortly after Hurricane Andrew has resulted in my wife and me being subjected to two major hurricanes and the resultant huge damages. Hurricanes Wilma and Irma were the biggies, and there were hundreds of storms, named and unnamed, that came and went without catastrophic results.
When Loretta and I see video of boats piled like pick-up-sticks in the yards of homes on our west coast, some of which are not even located on the water, we both groan and share in the turmoil, chaos, fear, and anger of devastation and loss of lives. It’s a hefty price to pay for living in paradise.
Five years ago, when my wife, Loretta and I were finally allowed to come home after Irma, our hearts were broken. We thought there was no way we could dig out from mountains of debris covering our entire yard and mounded up against the house. We had to cut our way, with a chainsaw, through downed palm trees that blocked the elevated front door of our stilt house. The drywall ceiling of the carport had fallen, soggy, wet and heavy, on Loretta’s car with a filthy, slimy, high-water line halfway up the steering wheel.
There’s no way to prepare yourself for a return to massive devastation. Even with many years of experience in disaster recovery and emergency management jobs, or duties, Loretta and I were shell-shocked and groggy minded for weeks, and probably months or more.
So, here we were again, faced with a potential Cat 4 or 5, maybe heading toward the Florida Keys.
When we fell out of the Cone of Uncertainty, and Hurricane Ian turned toward the west coast, we knew some friends would be impacted. All we could do was offer suggestions learned from our past hurricane impacts. Things like taking both cars when you evacuate before the storm. Loretta and I took a big financial hit when her car was totaled right in our own carport. And packing a can opener that needs no electricity. And extra ice chests in case your refrigerator might have been damaged in the storm, like ours was, the power came on but the refrigerator did not start up.
Hurricane Ian is freshly ensconced in my alleged mind. Our house is put back in order, and we have returned to normal, everyday, life. Just the way we like it. It would be great to say this is the last time we’ll be involved in a devastating hurricane, but living where we live, we have to accept the fact that we live in an area where we need to remain vigilant and prepared for the next weather event.
I hope all the people involved with Hurricane Ian are well, and recovering from whatever damage was done to them. Loretta and I are glad we were as prepared as we were. We maintain emergency supplies all year, and keep emergency supplies stored, in different parts of the house, to minimize the chance of losing everything at one time. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
All in all, we’re pretty much back to normal. I even got out on the water for a little fishing with my buddy Dan on Monday. We traveled a total of about 70 miles, caught and released a few fish we were not interested in, and came home with two nice blackfin tunas in the box. On the way out to open water, there was a dark straight line along the horizon that made up the forward edge of a weather front.
With Ian still fresh in our minds, we were temporarily concerned when we saw very suspicion-looking clouds as we approached the front. I remembered a day at Kennedy Space Center when a well-formed front of storm clouds appeared. They looked like hundreds of cows’ udders and warned of possible tornadoes. Although not as threatening as the Cape Kennedy clouds, these were menacing enough to shoot a quick photo.
When the day was done, we scrubbed the boat and cleaned the fish. Dan and I clapped each other’s back and promised to keep a close eye on the weather conditions. For us, Hurricane Ian is just a memory now. We’re looking forward to our next fishing journey and both agree that life is good in the Florida Keys; life is very good in the Florida Keys.
C.J. Geotis is a life-long fisherman who followed his dream more than 20 years ago to live in the Florida Keys. His books, “Florida Keys Fish Stories,” and “Double-Edged Sword” are available at Amazon.com. He lives in Marathon with his wife, Loretta, His email is fishstoriescj@comcast.net.
