Oct 6, 2016 3 min read

By the time you read this, we may know more. Did the house survive? And what about all those lemon and banana trees?

For two days now, I watched the circular blob on the computer screen, the one with the swirling grays and blues and the menacing red eye in the center. Never before has a weather map held such a personal stake for me.

Two years ago, the farmer and I invested in a house on the Atlantic coast of Florida. It’s a modest but pretty place on a quiet street on a barrier island. Our tenants left a week ago at the end of their lease, before Matthew starting huffing and puffing. The farmer went down there Tuesday to spruce things up for the next tenant. At that time, Hurricane Matthew was still making up his mind.

Man, how 48 hours can ramp up a girl’s anxiety.

Yesterday, the farmer was battening down the hatches, putting up the storm shutters and draining the pool. By last night, he resolved to stay put through the storm. The house is made of stucco and has a solid roof. He has food and water and a generator and gasoline. He would ride it out in the house.

Here is a man who is not frightened away from much. For six months, he lived in tent in Patagonia. When he moved a bit north from there to a farm in Argentina, tarantulas would occasionally get into the house, nestling into his shoes. He would let them stay.

So to his way of thinking, a category 3 hurricane was nothing to run off about. I offered what I thought was good, sound reasoning: If something happens to you, the medics won’t be able to help. He said some neighbors were staying put, too.

By this morning, Matthew upgraded to category four.

“I’m headed inland,” the farmer said when he called.

This brought a visible relaxing of my shoulders. With a full tank of gas and 12 hours before the worst was set to begin, he would make it to drier land.

But the house.

With the farmer and Smoothie, his little dog companion, safely on their way out of Dodge, I could turn my worry to the less dire but still important things. The house.

There is insurance, and we have it. A stucco house will fare better in this storm than did the flimsy huts of those dear people in Haiti. That 65 died so far gives me a combination of gratitude and dread. It’s a day of bad luck, yes, but nothing like in Haiti.

I will spend all day and evening looking at weather maps, flipping channels and logging in all over, hoping for good news. I will wait for a cellphone call from somewhere in central or northern Florida. I will hope and pray Matthew changes his mind and retreats out to sea. And yes, I will hope that the roof holds, but I won’t pray for that.

Considering what others are losing, it wouldn’t seem right to ask.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.