Dealing with a Hurricane Emergency

The fire engine stopped in front of the office, way out on Wadmalaw Island, and honked the unexpectedly loud horn. Then, the firefighter proceeded to announce over his loudspeaker that the governor had issued a MANDATORY evacuation. They asked us to please leave our homes immediately, and we certainly did!

I hurriedly took the computer apart completely, and packed it to take with me to Augusta, Georgia. And, in case you didn't know, it takes eleven hours to get to Augusta from Charleston, SC. That is, if your Department of Transportation thinks it's a stupid idea to open the opposite side of the interstate to reverse traffic during emergencies, such as MANDATORY evacuations during which over half of a million people are trying to leave the city at once! For the record, it should only take three and a half hours to travel that route on a normal day.

Those of you who live in the Charleston area probably remember it well, back in September of 1999 when Hurricane Floyd came our way. Maybe you were one of the patient ones playing Frisbee in the interstate median, having a picnic, or enjoying a game of soccer.
I wasn't. I was sitting in the stand-still traffic, with two of my many cats. My husband had another cat (and, of course, he loved that). My father had a cat and a dog in his truck. And my sister, (you'll be glad you're not her), she and her roommate bravely traveled with five cats and a dog inside a convertible mustang for the entire eleven hours! How? I don't know. I DO know that somehow one of the cats, Kit, managed to crawl up into the roof--literally. He got between the liner and the vinyl of the top. He slept there the whole time. He's the feisty one, too, so at least that kept him out of trouble. It definitely didn't do much for the car, though.

Normally, I can handle a long car trip. I'm from the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, and to go back there takes about thirteen hours. However, we expected a somewhat quick trip to Augusta, but the time it took was quadrupled by the chaos on the interstate. Also, you can't let a cat out to use the bathroom whenever it needs to go. That's the sad part. Luckily, though, we all made it through, and we're all back where we belong. Not everyone was as fortunate to escape loss or damage.

I'm just glad that we didn't leave immediately when the evacuation was called. Apparently, those who did had left around noon and were still sitting in Charleston traffic at 11:30 p.m. that night! It's really too incredible to believe unless you were here. How ridiculous that the Charleston residents had to endure the consequences of poor planning on the part of those we choose to be responsible for keeping us safe. We were told to take with us our most prized possessions. Sadly, there were many cars abandoned alongside the interstate due to running out of gas, overheating, or other various problems caused by sitting in traffic for hours on end, unable to exit the interstate even if you wanted or needed to do so. Guess what was left in those abandoned cars? Yes. The most prized possessions. Go figure that when you really have an emergency,
everything goes exactly as it is NOT supposed to go. When the news finally announced that the opposite lane of I-26 was going to be opened to reverse traffic, near midnight that evening, we decided to leave. We thought the traffic would have begun to flow. NOT even close!
Leaving Charleston at 11:30 p.m., we arrived in Augusta at 10:30 the next morning. And that, my dear readers, is how it took eleven hours to go what normally takes about three and a half.

Upon our return home, as we all were trying to get back to a somewhat "normal" routine in Charleston, you would hear story upon story of things that happened during the evacuation. The most heartwarming story I heard was about a co-worker of my husband. His family cat had escaped during a stop at a rest area when they were evacuating. However, a couple of days later, on the way home, the family stopped at the same rest area and found their cat patiently waiting.

To all of you who took your pet with you during the evacuation . . . BRAVO! To those of you who left your pets to weather the storm alone . . . SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!

Unbelievably, there were a couple of brain-dead locals who left their two Persians locked on a SCREENED PORCH WITH NO FOOD OR WATER. There was also the moron that decided his dog would be okay during the hurricane -- tied to a TREE! Yeah, those winds over 100 mph won't hurt . . . How can someone think that way? Sorry, but there's no good reason for sacrificing your animals. It's the saddest thing I had heard about regarding the whole ordeal. If my family could manage to coordinate moving and housing nine cats and two dogs, I think your family could handle dealing with only two.
If you can't love a pet like a pet, then don't get a pet.