Hurricane Dorian: the entire population of the Southeast Coast of the United States is holding its breath. Savannah and Charleston are being evacuated. Florida towns have abandoned the protective barrier islands.
The President was shocked (again) that there was a Category 5 in the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Dorian is the second strongest storm recorded in the Atlantic.
Coverage 24/7
The Weather Channel and cable news networks, all went to wall-to-wall with coverage, with lots of shots of waves striking beaches, empty restaurants, and boarded up windows with catchy slogans.
But Dorian hasn’t gotten to the United States yet. It is sitting on the Bahamas, grinding them down, hour after hour, and now day after day. Dorian is spending its energy, dropping from Category 5 to 4 and this morning 3, on the small island nation. The highest point on the northern islands of the Bahamas is about thirty feet above sea level. Dorian’s storm surge is twenty-four feet.
We don’t know about the Bahamas yet, it’s still happening. The Abaco Islands in the country, a beautiful, tranquil Caribbean paradise; are still in the hurricane, though the eye has moved west to the island of Grand Bahama and the town of Freeport. We already know that five are dead, but we don’t know more.
Days in the Grinder
It’s likely to be awful. But one small note to be proud of. The US Coast Guard is already there. In a time when “America First” is the standard phrase, American helicopters are making rescues in hurricane winds, American ships are braving hurricane seas, and American Coast Guardsmen are risking their lives for others.
“America First” today means more than just a xenophobic “America Only,” it means American’s first in to help with disaster.
I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of discussion about this in the upper echelons of government. The Coast Guard probably just went, knowing their job, and the need. People needed help, it didn’t matter the color of their skin, or their nationality as Bahamians. They spent days in one of the worst hurricanes in history, days in the equivalent of an F-3 tornado (for those of us in Ohio where we know the Fujita scale with much more intimacy.)
This is what America really is: the orange helicopters hovering above, pulling folks to safety. There are already private citizens in Florida, arranging for more helicopters to take supplies into the devastation. They know airplanes won’t work; the airport is literally six feet under water.
The News Cycle
Our news cycle moves so quickly. Dorian better move soon, or we will all forget about it. The folks moving one-way out of Charleston will start sneaking home on the back roads, and the surfers at Sebastian Inlet will jump back into the waves. For the sake of the Bahamians, Dorian needs to go, anywhere, away.
But as we wait for that moment, for the time when we can see the damage and devastation, we can only hope that the US reaction will be one of horror, sorrow and an outpouring of support. Hopefully it will be greater than what we did for our own countrymen in Puerto Rico, after another Category 5 hurricane, Maria, spent several hours on that island.
Helping others after disaster is America at its best. It is as American as “John Wayne coming over the hill” or comic book heroes rescuing the world. Americans already are saving lives, when Dorian finally moves, there will be many more to save, and a nation to help salvage. Let’s not let the news cycle blow them away.
