The Downlow on Hurricane Parties
Okay *presses hands together*Iāve been seeing a shit ton of posts about these and no actual explanations about How Living In a Hurricane Zone actually fucking works. Like - socially.Ā
Reciepts:Ā I was made homeless by 2 hurricanes in my life - once at 8 and again at 17. I have also ridden out more hurricanes than I can remember. I grew up in Hurricane Alley in florida and I have a tshirt from my senior year that says I Survived Hurricane High School because our senior year was so fucked by Hurricane Ivan no less than a 1/3rd of the student body was displaced. Aside from my parents divorce itās probably the single most impactful thing to ever happen to me.
So let me explain a thing to those of you who donāt have hurricanes.
Thereās a few types of hurricanes that make landfall on the continental US. There are REALLY BAD hurricanes - like Katrina and Harvey. Those are the ones where all you can do is Fucking Run.
But then? Thereās the Less Bad Hurricanes.Those are insanely windy and full of rain and trees come down and shit gets bad but likeā¦mostly, you get through it by hunkering down - boarding up the windows with plywood or specially made hurricane shutters(actually a thing, we had them on my house) bring in everything you have outside your house and plying it up in your living room and then just waiting shit out. Wild right?
If you live in Hurricane Alley, you realize, hey, for a Less Bad Hurricane, higher ground is all I really need. That is still an evacuation, itās just not aĀ Fucking Run full evacuation. When you evacuate to higher ground you almost always end up at Someoneās House and often, whoeverās place you end up at is putting up 2+families and so are other people in that area because thatās the Higher Ground.
Hereās whatās happens. The whole goddamn town shuts down. This is one of the few times capitalism comes to a grinding halt (unless you work at Waffle House. That motherfucker stays open until you pass Cat3 because theyāre more intrepid than any fucking US Marine) and the whole town shuts down. Thereās power - until there isnāt. Thereās water - until there isnāt.Ā
And then?Ā
Thereās just you and the people youāre trapped in a house with for hours if not days.
What you end up with is a lot of people in one place, sharing their supplies of water and food because they have to - gathered in the ONE place that might have a generator - WHICH YOU CANNOT RUN ALL THE TIME ANYWAY, DONāT LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU DIFFERENTLY - when the weather is wet and also 90+ degrees, because you gotta remember this only happens in the summer. Schools are closed so a lot of the time, people are trapped in small places with their kids who dont know each other that well and cannot go outside and play which is a nightmare because did I mention the electricity is down? Yeah, this is literally the start of a fucking horror movie.Ā
Because on top of that, after a certain point, the sun is going to go down. You may have candles but not THAT many and you wanna save them so you canāt read.
And what are you going to do with that time? Seriously, what? Fam you gotta TALK to each other to pass the time.
Plus?Ā All the adults are fucking stressed out. Aside from the host, no one is in their own home and theyāre scared. They might pretend theyāre not but they are. They may not be scared for theyāre life but theyāre afraid for their property and their friends who didnāt come with them and theyāre afraid for whatās going to happen when that motherfucker makes landfall and and and.Ā
You know what makes that experience easier (on the adults at least)? Alcohol (and weed if youāre in Florida where that shit is legal) and revelry and generally being playful, letting the kids play too, maybe getting a brightly colored cake that makes the whole experience less terrifying.Ā
And lo, hurricane parties.Ā
So yeah. Thatās whatās going on with hurricanes.
Thatās whats going to keep going on with hurricanes as the climate crisis continues.
And if you try and guilt and shame people out of their coping mechanisms and survival tactics that scientists and survival experts have proven work (seriously, I went to a panel on how to survive an apocalypse and the first advice they gave was Throw A Party) then youāre just wrong. Stop harshing people and start being supportive. Things are only going to get worse as we move forward and trust me when I tell you, a good hurricane party can save sanity and lives.Ā
OP, thank you?? sfm?????
about the only thing more irritating than outsiders being condescending about it is carpetbaggers thinking it really is just about fun and not coping.
Adding on to this actually because thereās another factor that I think people outside of Floridaā¦probably SHOULD understand, but often donātāyou can watch a hurricane coming.
Likeā¦you have around a week to understand and think about it, and thereās only so much you can do. In a lot of casesāunless thereās a) a major hurricane, cat 3 or higher b) making landfall very close to where you liveāit is actually safer to bunker down and ride it out. Most buildings in Florida are designed to withstand hurricane-force winds up to a point; if youāre in a non-evacuation zone or if the storm is coming across land (ie, like me you live on the Gulf coast and the storm is hitting from the Atlantic) you are in the safest possible place.
So you stock up, you board up your windows, and youā¦.wait.
For days.
Emphasis on the boarded windowsāyou generally want to wait as long as is safe to do that, because something people often fail to fully understand is that once youāve screwed heavy plywood over all the glass in your home, you have no natural light in your house. (My dad invested in a sort of reinforced plexiglassāstronger and better than plywood, but a lot more expensiveāfor our living-room window specifically to counteract that claustrophobic feeling, but thatās not financially an option for everyone.) At the same time, however, you need to have them up by around the time you start getting rain bands, because otherwise youāre trying to put up large sheets of lightweight material in heavy, gusty winds.
If youāre from up north, understandāyou start getting rain bands DAYS before the hurricane hits. Board up your windows and sit there for two solid days and then tell us weāre stupid for wanting some relief.
(I will say thoughāmost hurricane parties are careful about the booze. A drink or two to help relax is normal, but people here are more sensible than yāall seem to believe. Things can go wrong, even just things as simple as a generator not working properly; everyone is aware that theyāll need to be capable of responding safely. If youāre seeing large amounts of alcohol, that probably means thereās large amounts of people and theyāre planning for several days minimum without being able to go shopping.)
(Yes, of course thereās like that ridiculous 2% of people who do shit like hang out in parking garages getting drunk, but it is disingenuous and mean-spirited to act like the tiny portion of people doing something like that are in any way representative. And frankly, theyāre usually tourists.)
Hurricane parties arenāt really for decompressingĀ during the storm. Theyāre to help counteract the creeping dread and overwhelming anxiety of the 48 hours BEFORE the storm. Theyāre for giving you something to do, something to focus onāsomething to plan, when youāve already done all the storm prep you can. We donāt have hurricane parties because we donāt take hurricanes seriouslyāwe have them because we know damn well how serious the situation really is.Ā
You have no idea what it feels like to watch the wrath of God descend upon you at a slow and leisurely pace. You have to break that tension if you want to be able to function during a storm; otherwise youāre mentally burned-out and exhausted before the actual hurricane even gets there.
To add to this, I think a lot of people donāt understand just how much damage hurricanes can do and for how long that damage can last.
Iām in Austin, and we got rained on a little when Harvey hit. So Iām by no means an expert. But when I went down to Houston to volunteer to help the people clean out their houses, I was fucking shocked by how much damage hurricanes can do. I was also 17, so that could factor in why I didnāt know how much damage there is. But I think itās just kind of hard to imagine it unless you see it.
First of all is the way people have to clean out their houses. Their floors, walls, belongings. Everything that got wet goes. People had piles and piles of everything sitting on their lawn because now itās all moldy and destroyed.
Thatās their belongings. Their walls. Their floors. Their house.
Peoples houses essentially got moved to their lawns because you canāt keep all those moldy walls and floors anymore. They gotta be destroyed, removed, and replaced. So they now lost their furniture, their collections, their everything.
Second is the smell:
Water makes things moldy, and moldy things stink. So when thereās a house that got hit and has been wet for days, itās not gonna smell pretty. There was one womanās place in particular where I couldnāt go into the house with a mask on without gagging. The floors were sopping wet. Her books had been completely destroyed, and everything stunk so bad my eyes teared up. I canāt even begin to describe the smell. The owner was wearing a gas mask when we arrived. Thatās how bad it was.
One person said that they havenāt been allowed to go home for days because of the health risks. There was one neighborhood that was told they werenāt gonna get hit by a hurricane, and then got hit by Harvey. They didnāt have house insurance because that was an area of Houston that was predicted to never get hit by a hurricane.
We had a team of people who essentially destroyed peopleās walls and hauled it into the lawn. Same with the floors.
A year after Harvey hit, my family wanted to go to the ocean. So of course we went to Houston. On the side of the highway, there was a huge ass pile of everyoneās belongings. This pile went on for longer than a football field. It was much, much taller than a car.
And it was just sitting there. A year later.
I donāt know what a mild hurricane looks like, and Iāve never experienced one first hand, but this is what Harvey looked like weeks after they were hit.
Wow this is amazing. I'm not around any hurricane zones or even close and I actually didn't even know there was such thing as a hurricane party. Things like this give me hope because, when it matters, when it REALLY matters, people are GOOD. Yes, there's that two percent who aren't, but in general they are. Like these are strangers going to people's houses and staying there and these people are welcoming them into their homes because they NEED that. They're looking out for each other and taking care of each other. I just think that no matter what others might say, people are amazing and no matter what happens we're gonna get through it because we're human and that's what we DO and I think that's awesome.
