From Katrina to Helene
My home of 12 years is for sale. I supervised the building of it from New Jersey as I was concluding my ministry of 13 years in that location. I was excited to have a home of my own in a beautiful place.
My husband and I retired on the same Sunday. The next day, we put my 86-year-old mother on a plane to go stay with family while we moved down and got settled. We got on a different plane to come to Fernandina for the closing on the house in the middle of a tropical storm. My mother gave up living independently in senior housing to move in with us, and she gave up driving. Her car was donated to a grandson.
I had relatives three hours away but knew no one in Fernandina. We left our respective churches and retired from our careers in ministry. We left our friends. To say there was a lot going on is an understatement.
There is a lot going on for me now, too. My mother passed away three years ago and my husband has resided in memory care for several years. It is time for a change for me. I am not leaving the island. I am moving to a neighborhood where both family and friends live. This move is nothing like the one 12 years ago, except that I have less energy and strength for it.
My story of big life changes is nothing compared to the stories of those who were in the path of Hurricane Helene. The hurricane cut a wide swath of destruction through six states.
What we see now online and on the news reminds us of other times when nature’s fury has been unleashed.
My former congregation in New Jersey partnered with a congregation in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth ward following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I went on a Friendship visit of churches to churches and chose to be partnered with the only other church in the group pastored by a woman. Her little wooden church had been destroyed. The congregation bought the shell of a building vacated by another congregation. The shell had had 12 feet of water in it and had been stripped of anything valuable, including copper wiring. But it was something. The day of the dedication of the renovated building was an inspiring celebration. The journey of rebuilding was arduous, with graft and mistreatment from contractors and suppliers. The neighborhood would never return as the tightly-knit but economically poor neighborhood it had been.
I befriended a young Black woman who worked in a youth outreach ministry in the Lower Ninth Ward. She required a double lung transplant not long after the storm. She had contracted lung infections from being submerged in polluted standing water. The transplant eventually failed and she needed a second one. She is no longer with us.
These are just a few of my stories of the lingering trauma from storms like this. Sarah Kaplan wrote in the Washington Post, published on October 2 about the decades-long effects spiritually, physically, economically and emotionally in her article, “Hurricanes’ Lasting Toll.”
She quotes research compiled by the Journal of Nature. It’s a long article but worth reading. Here is a portion of it:
“Helene’s lasting damage to homes, health systems, economies and social networks could end up resulting in thousands of additional deaths in the coming years, new research suggests.
An analysis of more than 500 tropical cyclones that have hit the United States since 1930 found that the average hurricane leads to as many as 11,000 excess deaths — a figure hundreds of times higher than official mortality estimates. By combining weather records with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality data from months before and after the storms struck, the study’s authors revealed how death rates in affected states remain elevated for 15 years after a storm makes landfall. Unlike the fatalities from turbulent floodwaters and collapsing homes, these deaths can occur years after a disaster. They are often associated with medical conditions — cancer and heart disease — that can be exacerbated by the stress and disruption of a storm. And they tend to strike those who are already most vulnerable in society: infants, the elderly, racial minorities. In total, the study suggests, as many as 5.7 million Americans died in the aftermath of hurricanes between 1930 and 2015 — accounting for 3 to 5 percent of all deaths across the continental United States each year. The staggering toll points to major shortcomings in the country’s disaster-recovery systems that leave communities poorer, sicker and more isolated years after the improvement as rising global temperatures fuel stronger, wetter storms.”
When I let my to-do list tie me in knots, I feel ashamed of myself for forgetting even for a moment what so many others are going through. I have a house. I have my cat. I have my clothes and all my things. I have my car. I have my necessary documents. I have my medicines. I have insurance. I have my photos and other mementos. I have my functioning computer and cell phone. I have family and friends who are not living in upheaval who can lend their strength and support to me. I am not traumatized by experiencing the home I love and the area I love changed forever by a storm of epic proportions.
I am recommitting myself to being grateful every day. I am going to financially support well-vetted storm recovery efforts. I am going to pray for everyone affected by this storm. I am going to work to help vulnerable people not be forgotten now or in the years to come. And I am going to advocate for funding relief agencies and for efforts to work on awareness of climate change. I am going to keep in the front of my mind the words of the gospel of Matthew’s 25th chapter in which Jesus is quoted as saying, “Whenever you do it to the least of these my children, you do it as to me.”
