Front of our house when the tornado hit.

My office when the tornado hit.

Women and Adversity:

Living through a natural disaster

I hear the swishing of the clear plastic tarp that covers the inside space where a kitchen window should be. A plywood board covers the outside space. The titanic destruction is evident looking out from one of the mud-encrusted windows that’s not boarded up.

The EF, Enhanced Fujita, tornado that swept through Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. registered a 3 wind speed. That means the wind reached from 136-165 miles per hour and is considered “severe.” The National Weather Service said the winds were clocked at 165 mph around 11:30 p.m. the night of Feb. 15.
The primary destructions occurred at Ocean Ridge Plantation where I live. Towering pine trees no longer sway in my backyard or in my neighbors’ backyards. Instead the yard is filled with shattered glass. Shrubs are uprooted. Flower pots are overturned and broken. Most of the deck railing is gone. I found parts of it across the street and two houses down from where we live.
We see nearly all of the seventh green of the golf course and the homes across the fairway. Cobalt blue tarps are tacked on our neighbors’ roofs, and plywood covers their broken windows as well.

Mother Nature exhibits extremes. The beauty of the natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and Denali National Park are breathtaking, but in the opposite direction is the havoc hurricanes, tornados, floods and fires bring. People have no control over natural disasters, but we can survive and become stronger for them. Steve and I didn’t suffer any physical harm, and we are lucky that we are living in our home despite the boarded-up windows, plywood floors where carpets were removed and no doors on rooms where they were ripped from their hinges.

We realize that we have more to do in life unlike the three people who died when the tornado hit. We will repair and redecorate. We’ll find our way. We’re fine.