Time to Flee?

Packed roads of evacuees leaving Florida.

This heavy traffic continued long into the night!

But where? Is there a safe place?  Is this the end of the world?  With the disasters just here in the states, it can make you question… are we living in the last days? 

In the last few months alone, we have experienced Hurricane Harvey who worked his misery on Texas! Kim Jong-un looks more menacing than ever!  An 8.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked Mexico City and fires continue to rage all over the west and southwestern Canada – working their way even into our National Parks! Hurricane Irma (with Hurricane Jose’ on her heels…) said to have been the most catastrophic hurricane to ever hit Florida and the most destructive hurricane in the Atlantic in the last hundred years!!  Not to mention the total Eclipse of the sun and the latest blood moon! 

 As I watched, the ferocious forces of Hurricane Irma as it roared through the Caribbean’s with 185 miles an hour winds – I counted the days I had left to finish preparing my home for it’s possible total destruction, a little voice questioned, “Is this it?”.

Forcasted spaghetti lines showed Irma visiting Ohio and Indiana in her furthest reach north

As I went to get my last provisions at the grocer, I seen the doomsayers holding signs at corners and intersections shouting that this was the end… that same little voice spoke a little louder in my head, “Is this it? Are they right?  Am I ready?”

I don’t know if you have ever had to evacuate an area fated for natural disaster, but it can bring out the best and worst in a person as anxiety and stress levels rise.  Some run as fast and as far as they can, while others demand their right to stay to sometimes their bitter end.  

I battened my hatches best I could and packed a few of the irreplaceable belongings including my mom and small dog and left.  I drove about a mile and was stuck in thick traffic for 7 hours!  (I wasn’t on I-75!)  As we experience nature’s sometimes disastrous behaviors, we build hurricane proof buildings, underground shelters for tornadoes and dams to redirect powerful rivers.  

Hurricane Irma made her way through my area September 11... 9-11, again.  We were 4 days to 10 in the area without electricity.  Mom and I came back to not as much damage as we expected, and happy to have our home still standing! 

Much of the destruction came from the winds.

 Even though we came back 10 days after Irma passed our home, our local grocer was not fully stocked:

Still, we had our home and our lives, where so many did not from the storms and natural disasters that hit the US and surrounding areas hard this year:

Hurricane Harvey:  over 60 dead and over $160 billion in economic damage.
Hurricane Irma: over 70 dead and approximately $100 billion in damage.
Hurricane Maria: over 30 dead and a little less than $100 billion in damages in US - Puerto Rico.
Mexico has lost many lives in over 1500 earthquakes this year!

Prayers for our families, friends and neighbors.