Inconvenience Is Not Suffering: Hurricane Helene

Because my wife and I have family members and friends who live in Florida, I started texting some a couple days before Hurricane Helene hit to ask if they were threatened.

Fortunately, the path landed a bit east of one friend’s Gulf Coast home, sparing him from damage. Another friend in Gainesville talked of heavy rain that would delay her sister’s birthday plans, but no serious difficulties there either.

So, while dismayed at reports of destruction, I honestly didn’t give the storm much thought—until it landed on us.

Getting Saturated

For illustrative purposes only.

The high winds and heavy rains that lashed West Virginia came to bear just one day after Helene had been upgraded from a category 1 to a category 4 hurricane.

At first, I wasn’t alarmed. We needed rain desperately. Until Labor Day, I hadn’t mowed our lawn for just over five weeks.

Then, as I sat reading a magazine on Friday afternoon just before leaving to pick up my wife from an appointment, the lights flickered out.

They stayed out for more than three days. We adjusted by using the nearest public library branch for catching up with email and other business. We dined at a nearby restaurant or a daughter’s home.

On the final day of no power, we stopped at our church to take advantage of the wireless network and quiet surroundings before a visit to our chiropractor.

Adjusting on the Fly

If you can call the aftermath of a deadly storm fortunate, we were fortunate that the rains had lowered the temperature to a moderate level. So sleeping in the dark with no air conditioning available was no problem.

Nor was a lack of hot water. I learned that, with judicious use, our hot water tank usually has enough left to produce a few comfortable showers. A visit to the YMCA on our last day without power supplemented this effort.

The morning after electricity returned, I read our local morning e-paper. That’s when I discovered areas closer to us had also been devastated by Helene. Especially western North Carolina.

I can’t say why I hadn’t noticed this news previously. Except that local coverage had been spotty over the weekend and I had been a bit distracted by our problems.

Perspective on Suffering

This awareness prompted me to rattle off an email to a friend in the Raleigh area to ask if he and his wife had been affected.

He wrote back to say they escaped Helene with a hard rain and high winds for a few hours. However, he added, a large portion of western North Carolina was still without power and cell service.

For illustrative purposes only.

Some of their favorite places, including Asheville, had been devastated. He mentioned nearby Chimney Rock, “a quaint touristy town” of shops and restaurants along the Broad River. He said it was all gone, literally washed into Lake Lure.

“My friend’s mother-in-law was trapped in her home in Blowing Rock,” he wrote. “She was evacuated to Boone and was picked up. Having well water is no good when there is no electricity for the pump.

“They are airlifting in supplies and even saw one fellow had a team of mules he was using to pack in needed goods. Few roads are open in the area; many have been destroyed.”

Those words were like a personal wake-up call.

Sure, we had lost a few hundred dollars of food in our refrigerator and freezer. Sure, we had been inconvenienced for three-plus days. But inconvenience is not suffering.

Sounds a bit basic, right? It never hurts to get a reminder that perspective matters.