I really hate hurricanes.

I am infinitely grateful for the technology that lets us get “some” idea of where the monster storms are going, but it’s still not perfect science.

I moved here in 2000, and two days later, we evacuated for a hurricane.

I had no idea what living in a hurricane zone entailed. My dad was staying at his military base for the storm, to fly planes out of harms way. The rest of the family headed north.

We evacuated two more times that year.

In the nineteen years I’ve lived here, I’ve ridden out countless tropical storms, as well as category 1 and 2 hurricanes. (If you are instructed to evacuate, always listen to the local officials!). Power has been lost, much damage has been done, and a lot of sleepless nights were spent tossing and turning as the storms or the tornadoes they spun off kept me anxiously awake.

Before moving here, I knew nothing. Now I plot the course of the storms as they spin off of the coast of Africa. I watch the central pressure and forward movement. I know when the new advisories are posted, and I’m watching them for any change.

In September of 2004, I was called in to work the day before Hurricane Ivan hit. Being a registered nurse, you don’t have a choice – you work, or you’re fired. I placed my kids in the safety of my parents condo, and went to work…for the next 72 hours.

To say it was harrowing is an understatement. In a fragile old hospital, a window exploded inward just as the hurricane made landfall around 0135. We jumped up from our makeshift beds on the floor to make sure all was well. We cleaned, rearranged, moved patients around. The power went out.

The next 60 hours were spent without power, running on generators. We had no A/C and no windows to open, but we did have the ice machine up and running. Amazingly, we only had one baby born during that time on labor and delivery, and fortunately it was during the day – I had heard stories of past storms, and childbirth by flashlight.

Scrubs were modified – T-shirt’s and rolled up scrub pants. We took turns taking tepid showers.

Once the storm had passed, a group of four of us snuck out on our off shift to assess the damage. Power lines were draped haphazardly along the road. Roofs were gone from big box stores. Debris was everywhere!

As we pulled into my driveway, I was grateful to see my small brick house was intact. Some shingles had flown away, and there was a pile of vegetation debris six feet high in the back yard, but I had a home to come back to. The other three found similar situations. We sighed in gratitude.

Back at work, we missed our families, and waited to be released. The hospital was running low on food, and we ate cold sandwiches around the clock.

Finally, in the early morning of day three, the power came back on. We cranked the air conditioning down, and slept soundly for the first time since we clocked in over two days ago.

I had eight more hours to go before I could go home and see my three young children. The stress and exhaustion had taken its toll. One of our nurses had a loved one pass away overnight in our hospital, and I relieved her as charge nurse so she could go home and deal with the devastation.

We had one patient who had come in, demanding to be induced. I patiently explained to her that the schedule had been changed due to this catastrophic storm – that her own doctor had been in the hospital 72 hours straight riding out the storm. She would not budge. Her very tired but patient doctor let her stay.

Later that morning, as I answered her call light and was giving a litany of abusive language and expressions, I walked out of her room, and began to cry.

I’m not one to easily cry, but I was at the end of myself, and after not seeing my kids, riding out a storm, missing out on sleep, and the stress off the past three days, I had enough.

I called another nurse in from home, and she gladly took over.

I went to my parents, hugged my kids, and fell into a deep, much needed sleep.

Turns out the storm did more harm than I knew. My power was out for ten days – I had a fridge full of food that was lost, and this hit hard as a single parent.

The neighborhood rallied, though. My neighbor came over and cut up the trees that had fallen in the front yard. Everyone shared food before it was destroyed by lack of refrigeration.

There were also moments of beauty. The first night after the storm passed, we went outside and looked up at the sky, unimpeded by light pollution. It was a clear velvety canvas studded with the brightest stars I’d ever seen. Everything was perfectly still. It was as if nature herself needed a rest.

When I went home, I was mesmerized by dozens of dragonflies flying frantically around the debris pile in the back yard. After a few moments, I realized it was actually hummingbirds, knocked off course and confused in the wake of the cyclone.

I spent the days I wasn’t working cleaning up the debris, and clearing out the fridge. At curfew, I’d head back to my parents condo, where all three adult kids were camped out with their kids.

When I came home ten days after landfall, a power company truck from Ohio was on my street, hooking up our power. I wept as I stopped and gratefully thanked them. In the days to come, every time I saw the parade of power trucks from all over the country, I would weep again.

Over time, cleanup happened, blue tarps were replaced by new roofs, and destroyed buildings were torn down.

I am convinced I have mild PTSD from riding out Ivan. I didn’t have a choice – I am obliged to do so as long as I work as a registered nurse in this state.

I’m grateful my family and our homes were spared. In the years since Ivan, my heart lurches when I hear of a major hurricane aiming at land. I’m sick about the hurricane that is blasting through the Bahamas right now.

Hurricanes are definitely not to be underestimated.