Hurricane news: We’re fine… well if you count being without
electricity and water for a week. It was just like camping. NOT!!
Civilization doesn’t lend itself to camping very easily. What I
wouldn’t have given for a tent, a campfire, and a hole in the ground
(for you know what). Cities just weren’t made to be without water and
electricity.
What can I say. It was very impressive. I’ve not seen anything like
it in my life. Right now it looks like winter has struck this Caribbean
paradise. What trees ARE left don’t have any leaves. Normally urban
sprawl is just barely kept in check by the jungle seeking to reclaim
the constructs of man. Now, I look out and it seems that humankind has
won, our defenses have certainly proved themselves over natural
selection.
It’s really sad, but all you see is concrete. "My God, is there
really this much city?" Condado window has 43 cargo containers worth of
glass on it’s way from New Jersey ready to install this coming week.
Soon the skyscrapers will have their quick repairs, electricity will
come back, and we will be on our feet completely by the end of the
year, while the jungle will limp slowly back within years. That is if
we don’t find something to do with the bare spots in the meantime. "Hey
I never noticed that nice spot over there. Won’t that make a nice
McDonalds."
In reality the humans here have lost very little. Perhaps we have
had a bit of inconvenience. And maybe we will finally learn to put the
electrical system underground, as the power poles took heavy a heavy
toll. Then the next hurricane might just pass us by, and we won’t even
notice it was here.
In truth, it threw everything it had at us, and we’re still here. I
think there were only a couple of deaths (heart attacks I think). The
important lesson here is that this horrendous force of nature was
thrown at us almost as if to say, "Hey you!! Pay attention, I can still
kick your ass, " and it almost got overlooked. What people really
worried about was the rotting food in the fridge, the unflushed
toilets, the unshowered bodies, and long lines at McDonalds (they had
power generators).
While I’m glad we live in the twentieth century and the loss of life
wasn’t worse, and most people can weather an event like this pretty
well, I just wonder if we’re missing something. Is the abstraction
almost complete now. Will the bubble of urban life sustain us so
completely and exclusively that we’ll lose all connection… and just
float away.
I know this is a weird way to portray a hurricane, but I can’t help
but feel like it’s all in slow motion, no big deal, just going on
outside the bubble. It’s all so surreal.
But not to worry, today the electricity and water came back on. Looks like we’ll have air conditioning tonight.