After the Storm by Susan Cerulean

LUCY BURDETTE: You might remember my sister, Susan Cerulean, from her post about standing with the people of Standing Rock two years ago. She is a talented writer and a tireless and fierce advocate for the natural world and its creatures. October 10, she and her husband and millions of North Florida residents hunkered down through the harrowing winds of Hurricane Michael, and have been reeling from the damage. (The link is to her article in Sierra Magazine about this experience.) I thought this would be a good time to invite her back...

SUSAN CERULEAN: On November 13, Rhys Bowen mused on this blog about escaping to special places she loves, in these troubled times. Places that might be safer. Places untouched by violence and wildfire and climate change.

Part of me wants to escape, too.  But what happens when even your beloved place of solace is hurt or destroyed by fire, wind, storm or violence?

Hurricane Michael, a Class 4 hurricane with wind speeds topping 150 miles per hour, buzz-sawed through North Florida four weeks ago.  My special place, a coastal barrier island with wide beaches, enormous sand dunes and green pine forests, was slammed by the eastern bands of that storm.  The island, a national wildlife refuge, didn’t receive the attention of nearby, hard-hit communities of Panama City, Mexico Beach and Port Saint Joe, because no people live there. 

But a week after the storm, my husband and I kayaked over to the island, and were shocked at the loss of miles of tall, 800-year-old sand dunes, the island's first line of defense.  Nor could we account for the hundreds of brown pelicans, black skimmers, gulls and terns that had made their homes--the places where they nest and rest and raise their young--on the island.

I knew I couldn’t bring back the birds or the dunes, or stop hurricanes or the sea level from rising, but I knew what I could do: pick up trash left behind by the storm.

I cleared about a mile of the beach of plastic, enough it seemed, to fill a Walmart.  Four enormous trash cans, watering cans and golf tees, fishing poles and buckets, chairs and children’s toys, and even the signs that had marked off the nesting bird areas.

It was a cool beautiful day, and somehow, in all those hours of schlepping and hauling trash, I found some happiness.  When the birds do come back, they won’t find their refuge choked with storm debris.  And perhaps, I thought, the beaches, now doubled or tripled in width, would offer attractive nesting to sea turtle nesting next year.

What do you turn to when the problems of the world feel overwhelming?

Writer and naturalist Susan Cerulean divides her time between Indian Pass and Tallahassee, Florida. Her most recent book, Coming to Pass, Florida's Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change, won a gold medal from the Florida Book Awards in 2016. The book is now available as a paperback from the University of Georgia Press.

You can read more about Susan on her blog

Attachments