Last week I wrote about the hurricane we experienced over Labor Day weekend 2017. After the storm passed and everyone in the neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief that we had come out relatively unscathed, folks started pitching in clearing driveways, hauling branches off fences and roofs, and making room in fridges and freezers for perishables. It was another two days before commercial power was restored on our roads. But, I assumed things were getting back to normal. And, also that my husband and I would soon be heading back to our house in Tampa.
We were both still working for large corporations that had major centers in Tampa. My husband worked from home full time. I was allowed to work remotely from time to time, but was mostly expected to be in the office since I had a team of people reporting to me, some of whom were also in Tampa. Our employers understood about the storm, and realized many employees’ lives were disrupted. Still, I felt an obligation to get back to work.
Except, the neighbors kept talking about a flood.
It made no sense to me. The hurricane had passed. True, it was wreaking havoc on the North Carolina coast. But, we were in recovery mode, right?
Wrong.
Our beautiful little spring-fed river, called the Santa Fe (not to be confused with the one in New Mexico) flows into the larger Suwannee River, which has its origin in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. The Suwannee flows down to the Gulf of Mexico, picking up water from other rivers along the way. If the Suwannee gets backed up by too much rain between Georgia and Florida, the smaller rivers that flow into it get backed up, as well. And, they start to overflow.
And, that’s exactly what was happening. The forward progress of the hurricane was slowed as it crossed land so it dumped some of its excess water into the swamps. According to the neighbors and the Suwannee River basin charts we were in for severe flooding. Once again, my already fragile emotions started to crack. “Why is this year so full of bad things? What am I being punished for?”
I really didn’t understand what a major flood would look like. Neither did my husband. Until I walked down to the river the next morning and the water was lapping over the dock. I ran back to the house yelling, “we have to move the boat NOW.” By the time my husband got some waders on we realized there was no way to get the boat on the trailer and out of the river. All we could do was tie a long line to it from the dock and let it drift downstream away from the bank.
Over the next several days, the river rose to completely cover the dock (rails, too), the swing on the river bank, and steadily move up the 100 yards of wooded property to our house.
Where it stopped. About a foot from the bottom step to our porch. And stayed for about a week. Until it started to recede.
We were officially stranded in our own house for over a week. Although we could get out to the main road on a path through a kind neighbor’s field, there weren’t many places to go. All bridges over the three nearby converging rivers were closed. Local convenience stores were low on supplies and out of gas. Even the two closest interstate highways were closed due to flooding.
We explained to our bosses why we were so isolated and got our work done as best we could. We sent out messages to people we knew in nearby towns to see what roads were open and if fuel tankers were getting in. It was kinda like sending doves out to check for dry land.
My faith and trust were still at a low ebb. Yes, God got us through the hurricane relatively unscathed. True, the flood waters did not get inside our house. But, we were warned that some of the decades-old trees in our yard might die from being in standing water too long. Fuel was still in short supply. And our sweet twenty-year-old kitty seemed unlikely to live much longer.
I was hanging on by a thread and those doves weren’t bringing good news.
Laura
A Light for My Path 
Leave a comment