Going Native

It’s Not the Heat, but the Humidity I don’t know who coined this phrase but I would like to smack them. Not once have I ever asked, or been asked, “How humid is it there?” by friends or family or sometimes a customer service rep (another chapter for another time) when we’re on terminal hold for resolution of a perfectly stupid issue. I get the question “How HOT is it there?” quite a bit which is a direct link to the measure of heat, not moisture in the air. These folks apparently don’t have access to cable TV or the Weather Channel because at almost any given time there will be someone on some channel carrying on about how great or bad the weather is in Florida, depending on the circumstances. Given that we live near the west coast, we frequently have a nice coastal breeze so it is less warm and sticky than it might be just a short distance away so we are fortunate. The short answer is that we live in Florida and it is almost always warm here. Sometimes it is a pleasant thing; sometimes it is pure out hell. Hey, it’s Florida! If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes and it will change! Another phrase I am sick of hearing and it isn’t true. Some days it takes a full 30 minutes for the change to happen. This prediction gets used in many places, not just for Florida weather. It isn’t any more correct in any of the other places either. I used to think it was just the very old and boring who followed and discussed the weather in minute-by-minute updated details but then there was the launch of several weather-only channels available on TV and quite frankly with the recent decline in good programming, those channels are moving up on the favorites list. Those people on the Weather Channel who go to face the bad stuff head on and report back to us who are smart enough to be sitting inside, nice and dry with no chance of being blown away by an errant gust – they are getting rock star status now. One person has the dubious rumor following him that wherever he goes during the early development of a hurricane, that’s where the storm heads. Nothing personal mister weather guy but please don’t come here between June 1 and November 30. That’s “the season”, half of the year we have a pretty decent chance of being hit with a big nasty storm. Yeah, this place is paradise. I suppose the price we have to pay for living in such a nice state is that we have to suffer the ‘season’ and hope that odds are in our favor. By no means are we the only state hard hit but we do have the most exposure for such things. Many people ask us if we’re crazy to live so close to the coast and in an area with high predisposition to getting big huge nasty tempered storms that wipe out major areas with walls of water and winds in excess of 100mph (sometimes). Many of these people live in the Midwest or “tornado alley” as it has been affectionately dubbed. Seems to me they are the ones with questionable judgment. We get a week’s notice – sometimes more – before these storms hit. We know in advance how strong they are and we have a list of preparations and supplies that beaten into our heads, chanted like a ritual prayer and mailed, broadcast and stuffed into shopping bags for days before June 1. We even have a huge “Hurricane Season Kickoff” party and many seminars where you can get more info on how to prepare and survive a storm. Massive events with hundreds of vendors hawking stuff you never knew you needed but by George there it is and there is no way you will be okay without it. Tornadoes give you a 15 minute warning if you’re lucky enough to live near a siren. You do the math. A few things you can count on when a Hurricane is due to hit your area: grocery stores will sell out of water, many canned goods, batteries and ice. Home supply stores will run out of plywood, tarps (we like blue here), gas cans, generators, lanterns, coolers and batteries. If you don’t have approximately 20 gallons of water, a pantry full of canned goods, coolers filled with ice, at least 4 tarps per person, full gas cans and tanks and enough batteries to fill your bathtub – you will be made to feel inadequate. Well, for the first year…maybe two. If you move here, buy a generator and extra gas cans to fuel it. Live in the middle of the state? It does not matter. We had little to no problems with a storm here only to have it rip up the central cities with their theme parks and water slides who felt like they were safe. My family called us from the north-central part of Florida to offer shelter from a seriously nasty storm named Charley that was headed almost directly at our backyard. Mind you the storm was several miles across so that was a fairly approximate target area. We had a lot of rain and wind, a scary time to be sure. We never lost power, water, needed a single battery and opened only the 12 ounce cans from the icy depths of the cooler. Those same family members who were so sure we were going to be wiped out, they lost power for days, had trees down all over and could not travel certain roads, damage to homes and forced to eat canned foods that would not heat up no matter how many batteries they used. Go figure. This isn’t to say we don’t get our share of nasty weather. We got thru many storms with nary an issue. This didn’t stop me from buying supplies lest we get a surprise visit from the local authorities (meteorologists, not police) to be sure we had followed their instructions and had our copy of the hurricane handbook in plain sight on top of the family bible. We had one stretch of 6 weeks that brought severe thunderstorms that caused trees to fall and damage homes, power to go out for a couple of hours and the driveway to fill with rain water runoff. There was one storm with severe lightning that actually popped a utility line for power that burned through the cable and phone lines as it fell. That left us cut off from everything for 8 hours!!! We were prepared, had water and batteries and canned goods so we were fine. The Red Cross was not called this time. Truthfully I did use a battery powered box fan to keep the air moving as it was very warm and with the massive rainfall it was indeed humid with no AC running. I was home with our daughter, who was about 1 ½ at the time, and that little fan kept us cool, we played games (including a few battery powered ones) and we didn’t open the fridge more than we had to so it was fine. I did have my cell phone and food was delivered, but I never said my definition of ‘roughing it’ was primitive. Summertime is indeed filled with surprises in the outdoor conditions area. We have days where you can actually open your doors and windows and enjoy a nice breeze filled with the scents of summer without fear of heat stroke happening right in front of your TV. Mind you, we live near the coast so some days those breezes even bring a hint of the sea to our door. This is great most of the time, like having your own private air freshener scent without the spray cans. In the event of red tide, which kills off sea life and lets it wash ashore in piles that block the coveted views people pay quite a lot of money for, then the breeze is not so welcome as it will cause even the heartiest of souls to wrinkle their noses and begin a coughing spell that will cause you to gulp more air, which leads to more coughing and so on. Nasty circle of events it is. Many summer days begin with brilliant clear skies and soft breezes that make you walk outdoors and spin in circles while taking it all in like you see in those TV commercials for fabric softener sheets. Then you think, “What a great day to make lunch, grab a magazine or just sit out on the patio and enjoy the lovely day” but what you don’t know is by the time you change into shorts, make a sandwich, grab your magazine and a drink it has begun to rain hard enough that you can’t even see the lounge chair in which you planned to flop back and enjoy the no longer great weather. This will result in you sulking about and possibly deciding to call someone to tell them about the weather, and by the time you find the phone and call them, the rain has stopped and it is beautiful outside again. There is a problem with this second round of sunny, beautiful weather. Think about how most moist heat saunas work and it will come to you. Open your door now and the very breath will be sucked from your lungs and you will instantly be covered in sweat just from the labor of trying to breathe this wet, hot air. One other thing about the mood swings of weather here. Storms tend to pop up and move on quickly and I tend to be watching for this more than anyone in history according to my husband. Upon seeing the approach of a storm, I will usually say “looks like there’s some weather headed for us” which causes my husband’s face to contort and the same statement to be made – “weather is all over, it does not ‘head for us’ and it doesn’t refer to only the bad stuff; there is a STORM headed for us, not WEATHER”. However, he knew exactly what I meant so apparently my choice of terminology isn’t that far off the mark. The fact is, yes, Florida has a lot of heat and heat related events. It is rainy here sometimes. Sometimes we suffer droughts and wildfires. This state is not for the faint of heart, you have to be ready to get prepared and then change gears and prepare for the next thing before the first thing even gets to you. Maybe this is our form of gambling since casinos are not big here. It is indeed a crap shoot.