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Was thinking about my buddy @bsfarrington this morning and was reminded of a very personal story.
Hurricane Matthew was barreling towards North Florida, almost 10 years ago to the day. My then 82-year old stepdad was splitting time between Oregon and FL - but as the hurricane was about 24 hours away, my mother calls me with urgency - Joe is getting on a plane and coming home, and he wants to ride out storm at the marina.
So I get in my car to meet him at airport in JAX. Yes, he wants to ride out the storm at the marina he built - and my job from Mom is to convince him to not do that (meaning I too won't be riding out a possible Cat 4 or 5 direct hit).
In my drive over, Brendan calls. He is also on an empty east bound I-10, driving 3 hours into darkening skies going to cover the storm. I am worried for Joe, worried for myself at the prospect of riding out this storm in a small first floor condo at the marina, and he talks to me pretty much the whole way over.
Get Joe at airport on one of last flights in & we head for St. Aug and marina. He still wants to stay there. As squalls are coming in, he and I walk every dock, tie down everything untied (his team had already done most of the work), and I finally convince him as we watch a squall pushes the wind meter towards 70 that we need to leave and take refuge at a friend who lived 3-4 miles from the coast.
Brendan calls - he's at a hotel nearby and offers to comes over for dinner, and knowing that my stepfather (and me) are highly stressed, he spends several hours with us doing highly entertaining and distracting Brendan things, letting Joe relax.
The next morning, once it was clear the eye would miss us but very much in the worst of it, we headed back to marina (talking our way through road blocks & having no business on the road). Damage yes, some boats we had to re-tie, but marina had survived the high tide
Brendan, after reporting on the damage downtown where flooding turned the old city into a swimming pool, comes to the marina and sits down again with Joe as the weather finally calms.
They talked for an hour about the anxiety of having your entire life's work in the hands of God in a storm like this. I had never heard my stepfather vocalize it as clearly as this. Brendan created a space for Joe to say all the things that I knew he feared each and every time we saw a hurricane warning.
Brendan later asked permission from me and joe to write about it - both if joe was willing to take an off the record convo on, and if I was ok with my friend writing about my stepdad.
I long found it to be one of those moments where his innate humanity also allowed him to uniquely tell a story that many never would have considered.
And for stepdad, a chance to finally off-load decades of stress about the one thing he could do nothing about.
floridapolitics.com/archives/22401…
Hurricane Matthew was barreling towards North Florida, almost 10 years ago to the day. My then 82-year old stepdad was splitting time between Oregon and FL - but as the hurricane was about 24 hours away, my mother calls me with urgency - Joe is getting on a plane and coming home, and he wants to ride out storm at the marina.
So I get in my car to meet him at airport in JAX. Yes, he wants to ride out the storm at the marina he built - and my job from Mom is to convince him to not do that (meaning I too won't be riding out a possible Cat 4 or 5 direct hit).
In my drive over, Brendan calls. He is also on an empty east bound I-10, driving 3 hours into darkening skies going to cover the storm. I am worried for Joe, worried for myself at the prospect of riding out this storm in a small first floor condo at the marina, and he talks to me pretty much the whole way over.
Get Joe at airport on one of last flights in & we head for St. Aug and marina. He still wants to stay there. As squalls are coming in, he and I walk every dock, tie down everything untied (his team had already done most of the work), and I finally convince him as we watch a squall pushes the wind meter towards 70 that we need to leave and take refuge at a friend who lived 3-4 miles from the coast.
Brendan calls - he's at a hotel nearby and offers to comes over for dinner, and knowing that my stepfather (and me) are highly stressed, he spends several hours with us doing highly entertaining and distracting Brendan things, letting Joe relax.
The next morning, once it was clear the eye would miss us but very much in the worst of it, we headed back to marina (talking our way through road blocks & having no business on the road). Damage yes, some boats we had to re-tie, but marina had survived the high tide
Brendan, after reporting on the damage downtown where flooding turned the old city into a swimming pool, comes to the marina and sits down again with Joe as the weather finally calms.
They talked for an hour about the anxiety of having your entire life's work in the hands of God in a storm like this. I had never heard my stepfather vocalize it as clearly as this. Brendan created a space for Joe to say all the things that I knew he feared each and every time we saw a hurricane warning.
Brendan later asked permission from me and joe to write about it - both if joe was willing to take an off the record convo on, and if I was ok with my friend writing about my stepdad.
I long found it to be one of those moments where his innate humanity also allowed him to uniquely tell a story that many never would have considered.
And for stepdad, a chance to finally off-load decades of stress about the one thing he could do nothing about.
floridapolitics.com/archives/22401…
floridapolitics.com Marina owner post-Matthew: Dodged a bullet? No, it dodged us Marina owner Joe Taylor has a different take on whether Florida dodged a bullet during Hurricane Matthew. "We stood still. It dodged us. But we're 
