Hurricane Ian is Too Close to Home

Whenever there is a weather event in Florida I get concerned. I grew up in Florida and went to college in Florida. I moved away after college but went home at least once a year ever since to visit with my parents. Now that they are no longer with us and since the pandemic, we haven’t returned. But my sister just bought a small condo not far from where our parents lived. My mom gave our house to the neighbors who took such wonderful care of her and none of us were interested enough to want it. Additionally I know a lot of high school classmates who still live there, and know of colleagues from the Midwest who moved there and other people in my past that have homes there for six months out of the year. Many people in our building have homes there for winter. So when hurricane Ian was on the books I knew it wouldn’t be good. My dad located our family on the west coast in 1960 because he was well aware of where the hurricanes typically hit. He was in the coast guard for over twenty years and knew that the west side of Florida was safer. And we didn’t live on the water either - just in case. I was always biting my fingernails whenever hurricanes hit when my mom was still alive. The last two resulted in evacuations. One of them was to a rehab unit quite far inland - she was recovering from hip surgery and there was no choice. She was not happy but at least it would be safer. This terrible hurricane Ian at least made landfall south of where it was originally intended so I felt better for all of the people we know. I am hopeful that my sister’s new condo survived the episode, but I’m sure that the neighborhood was affected because it is on the water. I never wanted to live anywhere near the water and I’m really glad we don’t. But it seems that even living inland doesn’t help much with monster storms like this.