When the storm is on the other foot

I have noticed over quite a few years now that tropical weather, what we experience here in the bayou country from time to time and which is certainly well known to the south Atlantic coast, has become a spectator sport of sorts for people who don’t live anywhere near places at hurricane risk.

People from Wisconsin have appeared in the “comments” sections of some weather-related websites when deadly weather loomed, almost appearing to make book on which direction a tropical storm might take or what direction a hurricane a hurricane might travel.

To be very honest, I have been personally offended by these opinions at times, recognizing that people have a right to them, as with opinions on all other things. But for people who will never be in danger of experiencing hurricane storm surge, or losing their shingles, it just seems to me that such speculation ain’t right. You don’t see me speculating on the likelihood and timing of west coast mudslides or Midwest tornado trajectories.

I start off with this soap-box like rant to before disclosing that I obsessively tracked Hurricane Matthew, a storm which never did me any harm and was never likely to, once its northward track was made evident and clear.

But I found Matthew nonetheless fascinating.

There are several good reasons for this. I have friends who live on the Florida east coast. One of these, who had never experienced a hurricane before, called me up to ask what he should do as Matthew roiled toward him.

“Yes, you should definitely leave Palm Beach now.”

“No, no, no, do not go to Miami. If you leave head west … I don’t care if the storm has already left Miami alone. You don’t want to be traveling south. Go west young man.”

Other good reasons include friends in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. A particularly important reason – even if a selfish one – is that many copies of a book I wrote are in a South Carolina warehouse. The people who helped me and were so patient during the writing and editing process are also in South Carolina, right there in Charleston.

So many times during so many natural disasters I have fielded the phone calls from relatives and friends in other part of the country. They have wanted to know how I am doing when a storm is approaching, and how I fared after it was over.

I have always taken those calls patiently, when the phone will work, and always let the people know that I was okay, which I almost always was.

So now here I was, stalking peoples’ Facebook pages, checking the websites of newspapers and television stations from Boca Raton to Wilmington. Watching the “checked in okay” notifications. I was doing all the things that have made me cringe when others followed the practice.

As the storm passed each locality where I knew someone, I fought the urge to call – unless invited to do so – because who wants someone to call you when the last bungee cords are being hooked onto the luggage at the top of the station wagon. And so for that I will give myself a pat on the back.

I watched like a voyeur all the hurricane porn that went up on web pages as Matthew drilled north, through places whose highways I have traveled and whose street names I knew. There was a bit of a surprise, actually, when I saw that the effects of Matthew were felt rather far inland in North Carolina, in communities where I have also trod or driven.

By Sunday I had heard that everyone was okay in places I have visited before.

And somehow I think I’ll be accepting those calls the next time I am in harm’s way a little more charitably, with a lot less carping afterward and a lot less silent resentment.

What it means, after all, is that they really truly were concerned.

Sometimes it takes the shoe being on another foot to make one realize that friends and relatives are merely doing what comes naturally, and what you yourself would wish to do in similar situations.