Natalie Whatley

Last week I told you hurricane season spawns storms of a different variety in my house because I start plotting the Whatley course of action long before a storm nears land. Jeff prefers the wait-and-see method. I also mentioned his storm plan calls for removing himself from the path of Hurricane Natalie. You’ll never guess where he goes.  

Thirteen years ago we purchased a home boasting 33 windows (it’s not a typo); Jeff started buying plywood here and there as the budget allowed. Piece by piece and over the course of years, every window received its own custom-cut cover spray painted with a number correlative to a meticulously drawn diagram. It was a massive undertaking, and took time an approaching storm wouldn’t allow.

With the approach of Rita on the heels of Katrina in 2005, the dear man in my life didn’t sleep for at least three days. After fulfilling his duties at Bayer, he jumped right on the task of boarding up our home. It was brutally hot that day, and I was worried sick as I watched him haul large, heavy pieces up a ladder to the second-floor windows. He looked like death, and wouldn’t even stop to eat. The City of Baytown was considering an evacuation, and I was to pack as we’d be leaving ahead of the mass exodus.

Given all the Hurricane Katrina coverage, I was having a difficult time as weather forecasters were predicting Rita would bring similar devastation to our area. Just prior to leaving, Jeff found me crying in our bedroom. I knew we had to leave, but my heart wanted to stay and go down with the ship. He looked straight into my watery eyes and said, “We’re going to be just fine.”

We left 12 hours before Baytown was officially called to evacuate.  The gridlock was a nightmare to say the least.  After 31 hours on the road, and no fuel to be had, we had a decision to make: spend another dangerous night (people were getting desperate) on Highway 59, or take our chances returning home.  The distance traveled on our road trip to Hades was only a 45-minute return.   

Hours after arriving home, the storm turned. We’d have some nasty weather to endure, but it wasn’t going to be catastrophic to Baytown. Since hurricane-force winds were still expected, we decided to bunker down in the living room of our boarded-up fortress.

Jeff, completely spent, fell asleep on the way down to our queen-sized air mattress. The kids slept as well, while the dog and I kept vigil, prayed no large trees would fall on our home, and that the roof held. All night I listened to large chunks of natural debris slam into the plywood covering the many windows. Given all the crazy circumstances of Rita, I was as safe as I could possibly be.

I poked a little fun at Jeff last week, but I know he’s removed from my path because he becomes the clear, calm eye at the center of Hurricane Natalie. He’s told me, “we’re going to be just fine”, more times than I can count. He’s by far more accurate than the weatherpersons I watch.

© 2008 Natalie Whatley

Tropical storm Edouard arrived days ago providing a gentle reminder for each of us to assess our current plans and supplies. It’s something the experts say we should have already done, but by watching the news I’m led to believe many of our brethren wait for an imminent threat.

It also reminded me of one of the biggest things I despise about life in a coastal region: hurricane season. Humidity ranks closely as it affords me one bad hair day after another. Shallow, I know, but it affects my life with far more frequency than the storms.

Like many others, I’m completely stressed by things I can’t control. It’s difficult to wrap one’s mind around killer forces threatening cherished people and things. Worse, impending weather events between June and November tend to spawn storms of a different variety on my home front.

I want to be prepared to weather a category 5+ storm and the aftermath, while dear-husband Jeff feels such preparations are overkill fueled by media hype.  Intellectually I know a direct hit from a cat 5 (that’s weather-speak) would wipe out everything, but I’ve got what we need to survive on the roof surrounded by rapid water and critters until we’re rescued and admonished for not getting the heck out of here.

 In my defense, I was a resident of Baytown in ’83 when Alicia hit. The storm itself isn’t etched in my memory, but the aftermath is. Having been born into the luxuries of air conditioning and indoor plumbing, spending an entire month without electricity and water was rough on this girl.

On my storm-tracking chart, coordinates place Jeff dangerously close to nonchalance. In his defense, he’s not a native Texan, and doesn’t have what I would consider healthy fear and sense of urgency in avoiding last-minute preparations. He’s from tornado country, where there was little advance warning of impending disaster. Flying by the seat of one’s pants while assuming the crash position of kissing your hiney good-bye was about all that could be done in the seconds before a strike.

Here, we generally have several days notice, and I get into trouble when I want to discuss potential evacuation departure days out. Irritates the fire out of him, and his irritation is doubly irritating to me. 

The whole Rita evacuation debacle did scoot him somewhat towards seeing things my way as we spent 31 hours on the road, got no further than Livingston, and were forced by fuel constraints to return home to ride out the storm.

Although losing electricity for a week was a bit uncomfortable, it was a shining moment for me. We had everything we needed, and came out on the other side feeling like we’d been on a family camping trip.

Still, when there’s trouble brewing in the Gulf, I can with 100% accuracy predict at least a cat 1 striking our marriage. Given how we weathered Edouard, I’d say Jeff’s done some predicting of his own. His newly-crafted emergency plan calls for removing himself from the path of a storm. He avoided me like the plague last week.

© 2008 Natalie Whatley