Waiting for Frances

If there is anything worse than being hit by a hurricane, then it must be waiting to get hit by a hurricane.

And if you live in Florida, you’ve been doing a lot of waiting lately.

It started in late July with Hurricane Alex, which appeared just north of Jacksonville and then barreled up the eastern seaboard of the United States before disintegrating in the cool waters of the North Atlantic.

Then there was Bonnie, who whipped through the Gulf of Mexico but lost momentum just before making landfall, faking out frightened residents of the Panhandle. Her brother Charley, who arrived a few days later, wasn’t so kind: he chiseled his way through the center of the state, taking 27 lives and inflicting $20 billion in damage.

Now we’re waiting for Frances, a slow-moving storm the size of Texas that, if the projections are true, will smash into Florida’s east coast anywhere between Florida City and Flagler Beach during the Labor Day weekend.

In Orlando, we have a front-row seat to hurricane season. If you plot the path of Charley on a map, it zigs up the state from Punta Gorda, cutting its way toward the Magic City before heading back out to sea near Daytona Beach. If you look at Frances’ projected path, she comes up the other side, crossing Charley’s route.

Put the two storm paths together and look where they intersect.

Right here in Orlando.

I know, it’s hard to feel sorry for anyone who lives here. We have year-round warm weather. We have the beach. We have Disneyworld. But you might want to make an exception for us, just this once.

The first clue that something truly horrifying is about to happen is that the tourists leave. They scurry back north, realizing that this isn’t the paradise they’d expected when they booked their dream vacations. What’s worse, they demand refunds on the unused portions of their hotel rooms and rental cars, leaving those of us who are dependent on these visitors to face our doom with a few more financial worries.

Tourists are a reassuring presence in Florida. Their absence makes us irritable and impatient.

Gone, suddenly, is that Midwestern politeness we’re often known for. As I wait in a long line at the gas station, it feels like 1973 again. Nervous motorist cut each other off, jockeying for what could be their last opportunity to gas up for the next few days. At one of the few remaining service stations that hasn’t run out of fuel, there is a police officer directing traffic – and making sure civility is maintained.

In the days before the hurricane hits, the supermarket is in chaos. Entire rows have been pillaged by would-be storm survivors. Water, batteries and beer are gone. An employee stands at the entrance, shaking her head as customers enter the store.

“No,” she says, “we’re out of that.”

At the hardware store, try asking for a gas canister, a generator or plywood, and you just get a laugh. Not a friendly laugh. A laugh that says: “You really ought to know better.”

The once-immaculate residential areas soon resemble a crack-infested inner city. Windows and doors are boarded up. There is debris on the sidewalk from the previous storm – broken fence posts, bent shutters and severed branches – waiting for the county truck that never came.

More disconcerting is the unnatural quiet. Many residents have packed their valuables into minivans and headed north in a giant, slow-moving caravan on Interstate 95.

Those of us who have survived a hurricane know that moving is often futile. We remember how people fled Hurricane Andrew in 1992, driving up to Homestead from the vulnerable Keys, only to be ravaged by the killer storm. And our grandparents remember the great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the train filled with refugees that was flung into the Florida Bay, and the hundreds who drowned or were impaled.

So we hold our ground as Frances approaches.

We watch the cyclone coming closer – her eye tightening, her winds accelerating, her speed slowing in order to inflict the most damage.

Frances looks unstoppable.

No amount of negotiating will change the fact that she is on a collision course with us.

There is only one last thing left to do. In the hours before the power inevitably goes out, I make sure a copy of my will is in a watertight lockbox – and I hope, I pray, it is an unnecessary precaution.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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