Without Shelter
Surviving a natural disaster and other trials of life
I phoned Tom at midnight on Saturday just because I thought it would be fun for him to hear what tornado sirens sound like. They’re loud. Really loud. A long continuous wail. The emergency alerts to cell phones are damn loud as well. And those were coming in with some frequency.
Was I worried? No. As I typically say, hey, this is not how I die. (If you’ve ever seen the movie Big Fish, you know what I mean.) So I pulled the couch away from the window a few feet and laid down with Mazie beside me. Even she, surprisingly, wasn’t scared. With my shades drawn, lightning created a strobe effect in my living room. Eventually the thunder caught up. And when it struck outside just outside my house, both Mazie and I jumped. I moved to my bed. The sirens and the storm continued for two hours. Not bad. Or so I thought.
Dawn showed another story. Tree limbs had fallen on my house and power line in the backyard and wind had knocked over part of my fence. Limbs and leaves littered yards up and down the street. The real damage I didn’t see until I took Mazie for a walk.
Midtown Tulsa, where I live, was hit the hardest. 165,000 customers were without service and 700 poles were down. Gas stations and grocery stores were closed, and every intersection had become a four-way stop. For many folks, Father’s Day was spent wielding power saws, assessing damage, and moving fallen trees. Except for those trees that couldn’t be moved.
Yet again, as I have so many times in my life, I was grateful to have housing. Grateful that the damage was not worse. Grateful that I had a roof over my head and running water. So many people didn’t. So many people don’t.
What happens to those without homes, without shelter? If a storm can uproot trees and sidewalks, just imagine what it can do to a person.
I’m thinking about this a lot. I drive by a highway off ramp where a tree is uprooted and horizontal and next to it is a shopping cart - the obvious artifacts of an unhoused person. What happened to that person on Saturday night? Is that person alright?
On Monday, I helped a new friend move the last of her stuff into an apartment. This friend had actually been living in her car for a few months. At least, until I left for Idaho in May and she hunkered down in my tiny apartment. Safe, she said, she finally felt safe. And on the day I was returning, amazingly (by the grace of God, or you may say some good fortune), she found an apartment – half of a duplex. Not only one that she could afford, but one that feels magical and warm, complete with fantastic neighbors.
How does it happen that a healthy, working, college graduate ends up in their car? This friend isn’t the first I’ve known to have this happened. Joan DeMartin, who writes Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor in America, covers some of the causes in her essays. One in particular worth reading is “Medical Debt is Crushing Millions of Americans”.
For this friend, however, in addition to being underpaid while juggling school loans and a car payment, she left an abusive relationship and found shelter on a friend’s couch. A few months later, she and that friend got their own place together, signing a year lease. It wasn’t long, unfortunately, before the friend fell into a relationship with a guy who wiggled his way into their apartment, began doing drugs, and became violent. For her safety, she began sleeping in her car. Unable to get out of the lease, at least her friend took over the full rent. But she couldn’t use the property managers as referrals, and she needed to save money for another down payment. The cycle is viscous and very difficult to escape.
As we moved the last of her stuff into her new place, even with the electricity off and the air suffocatingly warm, I kept thanking God she hadn’t been sleeping in her car when the storm hit.
But by the Grace of God, a miracle, or some good fortune… that could be me.
It could be you.
As I was preparing to post, I got word that power was back on in my neighborhood - two days earlier than expected. Three trash bags later, my refrigerator and freezer are clean. The waste of spoiled food and condiments is significant, as is the cost. But I’m home again and immensely grateful.
I want to thank my friends, John and Pete, for generously inviting me and Mazie to stay with them while our power was off. As The Beatles sang decades ago, [we] get by with a little help from our friends.
As I finish writing this, I see a report that a tornado touched down in a small Texas town, killing four. We need to be paying more attention to these disasters than to a few folks who paid a quarter of a million dollars to sightsee the sunken Titanic. How do we respond when real tragedy strikes? How do we help others?
Have you been affected by a natural disaster? How did you get through it and recover?
Gosh, where have I been? Thank you so much, Jan, for mentioning my post about medical debt—it should never happen in our country.
I am so glad you made it thru this dreadful storm and you and Mazzie are safe...with a little help from your friends. You are so right—so much more time and media attention must be spent on the real tragedies that happen every day.
Glad you and your quadruped companion are ok!
I was born in WI and one of the few childhood memories I have from there was hunkering down in the basement waiting for a tornado to pass. I wasn't scared either, but it was memorable! Especially re-emergence into a neighborhood that looked... well, like a tornado tore through it! Such a crazy experience.