A stiff upper lip, for an Act of God
Everyone thought the storm would pass us by.
Before Helene, there was sandbagging and some boarding up. There was unease, but confidence. The island just finished cleaning up after Ian, and everyone was prepared. Be prepared.
Here at the Beacon, we planned to get our issue out early Thursday, in case the power went out. Daniel Godwin pressed the buttons to upload pages, and off they went to Venice, by the canal, for printing on Friday.
The news seemed good. We could worry about “others” in the Big Bend. So many stayed here on island. Some, we heard, even went over to visit friends for dinner after they had tied things up.
The issue was that Helene was so big that the backside, that “dirty side,” hit the island after the storm had passed. Friday, when we all woke, it was worse than imagined. For a time, both Gasparilla Road and the GICIA bike path flooded, and the bridge was temporarily closed.
The storm came through wherever there were breaks in dunes. For folks who were at the south end of Gasparilla Island, the lack of dunes at Gasparilla Island State Park meant that the waters rushed in and had nowhere to go, and could not even pass across the island as that drainage system was clogged. Lesson? Dunes and deep ditches. It may be that simple.
In the aftermath, as with any storm, there are haves and nots. By this time you are in one camp, or the other, or somewhere in between. Three of this staff had their entire lives flooded, but they are all safe and making do. These storms are leveling. This world is so stratified, broken and divided. A storm makes us all realize that none of us are an island, or we are all on this island together.
Perhaps one of the great traits of an earlier, lost America is the national stiff upper lip. It is derided in an Oprah world, where psychologists tell us that our emotions should rule all, and every feeling, thought and fear needs to be shared, examined and “unpacked.”
Here in town, this editor watched as least a half dozen married couples, who have each lost either businesses or houses, or both, worked tirelessly all week to not only put their lives back together, but to do it with grace, humility and humor, and nary a pitiful expression as they stood in sewery water. The only thing they each were “unpacking” were their life’s work, to put into dumpsters and trash bags. Emotions? In check. Save that for later as the work needs to be done. To see these couples work together through a flood hearkens to a Biblical model, and helps us to re-see the world as God intended, with the family at center.
In Boca Grande, that quiet resolve still lives, and is ready to be revived as a national custom. In a week of a Longshoreman strike, there is little that Boca Grande can “export” to the world. But one thing perhaps we can model is that we are the people of the stiff upper lip. Courage in adversity is addictive.
Pastor Beatty from First Baptist Church had a final sermon planned for the Sunday after Helene. His retirement was our lead story last week. He had meant to retire earlier, before Ian, but stayed on for the rebuilding. Sermons had to wait.
As this week went on, world news eclipsed the cleanup on Gasparilla Island. Missiles over Jerusalem. In the U.S., the tragedy in Appalachia is beyond imagination. Many Floridians were there, and friends here actually had to escape the mountains and come home to a flooded house, and lifetime of memories, destroyed. (Go on X.com and read the personal stories of a Lahaina-like government disaster response. Is $750 the best the feds can do? For mountains, in come the Cajun Navy by air.)
After the storm here, we heard of folks who walked off the island, and were picked up and were offered rides to Englewood. They did not even have to put out thumb, like people in the old days. Before Uber and Lyft, there was the thumb. Put out a hand, and people offered help.
What happened to America? Well at least here, for a moment, that America returned. The problem is that it should not have to take a storm for that to happen.
It is too early for lessons, but one quick one is that preparation for disaster is mainstream now. We must all be a “prepper” with a “bug-out bag” of necessities. Google what should be in your “bug-out bag.”
Be prepared. That used to be the slogan of the Boy Scouts of America, but there is no such thing. It was renamed Scouting America.
We are all scouting for America now.
Garland Pollard is editor of the Beacon. Email letters and comments to editor@bocabeacon.com.
