About a year ago, Hurricane Irma ripped its way through the state of Florida. The damage that this system caused to parts of our state such as the Florida Keys and Tampa Bay area was unimaginable to the citizens who lived there. Just a few weeks ago, I met a fellow FSU freshman, Emma, who is a resident of Marathon, Florida. Immediately, I thought to ask her about Hurricane Irma and the damage she had to deal with in her hometown, but her answer was one that I was not expecting. She shared with me that her roof, that was blown off by Hurricane Irma last September, had still not been replaced. The number of people in her town who had severe property damage was so high that her missing roof was put at the bottom of the list of maintenance to be completed as soon as possible.
To many Floridian college students, including myself sometimes, hurricanes are something that we wish and hope will come and hit us just so we can have a break from our extracurricular activities and time-consuming classes. As hurricanes come around this year, just like Hurricane Irma did last year, I urge you to remember that hurricanes are no joke for the people who are hit by one. Luckily, Hurricane Irma did not hit Tallahassee last year as hard as it was projected to, but sadly, Hurricane Florence has already created tragic wreckage in other states and college towns this year.
In fact, Hurricane Florence is one of the strongest and largest storms to have been created in the Atlantic Ocean for decades. While it was predicted to hit the United States as a Category 4 storm, it ended up making landfall in North Carolina as a Category 1 storm. However, just because the category was lowered doesn’t mean the storm didn’t leave a tremendous impact on the Carolinas and Virginia. Hurricane Florence still caused a death toll of at least 13 and has 650,000 residents trying to live without access to power. The rivers have also been exceeding record level flooding due to the 40+ inches of rain that was just dumped all over the states.
For all who have grown up in Florida throughout their childhood, there have been countless scary storms and hurricane warnings and we have become accustomed to the fact that hurricanes will hit us every year. However, as can be seen by students like Emma who still do not have a roof over their heads due to storm damage, Hurricane Florence serves as a reminder to take hurricanes seriously and not to overlook the damage that they cause to individuals, cities, states and even the well-being of our country as a whole. Even this Category 1 storm has caused death and destruction, and hundreds of thousands of people will not be able to resume their normal lives for a long time.
I urge you not to be jealous of college students in the affected states who had their classes canceled all week. Do not be jealous of the parents who could not attend work for a week because they have to stay locked in their homes to protect loved ones from storm surge, 105 mph winds and ten trillion gallons of rainfall. Instead, keep everyone who will be affected by the storm in your thoughts and as soon as Hurricane Florence is done leaving its damage, find out what you can do to help.