Adversity Brings Out the Best, and Worst in People
A humorous/philosophical account of our ill-timed trip during Hurricane Helene.
The past 72 hours has been FUN, let me tell you.
It all started early last week as we were keeping a wary eye on the track of what would eventually become known as Hurricane Helene. Like other born and raised Floridians, Matt and I are used to the magical time of year between July and November when the warm tropical waters of the Gulf create the perfect conditions for hurricanes to form.
It’s just part of living in Florida, and we’re used to it. Mostly.
My parents lived in Punta Gorda when Hurricane Charley decimated South Florida back in 2004. That was a category 5, and they stayed. It was 2 weeks before they had power and they lived with a daily curfew and no phones. She told us she’d never do that again.
So as Helene began to target her beady, little eye on Tallahassee, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get out of town. For two reasons.
#1- If the track stayed as predicted, we’d likely be without power for a few weeks and the tree debris would be extreme. Currently training for an Ironman, we had a 4-hour ride that wasn’t going to be possible in town.
#2- Many of our friends were competing at Augusta 70.3 in Georgia and we wanted to support them at their first half ironman.
Win-win! Or so we thought…
As a long-time Floridian, the general rule is that when Jim Cantore comes to town, you should leave! Like yesterday.
So when Jim made an appearance in downtown Tallahassee, we were out of there. Matt found an adorable Air BNB in Aiken, South Carolina about 30 minutes east of Augusta, Georgia. So on Thursday, we packed the bikes, the dogs, and the mom and headed north.
After driving through rain for most of the day, we were pretty tired when we got to the Air BNB on Thursday evening, so we didn’t fill up on gas.
That was mistake #1
We grabbed dinner and kept a close eye on The Weather Channel to watch the storm’s progress. We have family all across the state, from Punta Gorda and Fort Myers, to Orlando, Clearwater, and Panama City.
Right before the hurricane reached the coast at 11:10 pm, it took a sharp turn to the east, narrowly missing Tallahassee and hitting Perry. Tallahassee was very lucky.
But that also meant Helene was headed further east, which surprise! Is where we were staying. The transformer blew about 3 am and the wind was pretty crazy, but besides a leaky roof, we were just fine.
So our main mission after the wind died down the next morning was to get gas. Like ASAP. The thing is gas stations don’t work so well without power, and most of Aiken was dark.
Interestingly enough, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Fresh Market, and Dunkin’ Doughnuts were the only places open, which was slightly bizarre. But I guess even in a national emergency people need their coffee and doughnuts…
The lady at Fresh Market said she sold $1,000 worth of coffee in 2 hours, before they too lost power.
It’s one thing dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane when you’re at home and have supplies, but it’s a bit more difficult when you’re in a strange place. Also, in case you were wondering, maps on cell phones don’t work too well without cell service…
So after driving around for a half hour, we found a gas station that had power and filled up mom’s Jeep. We picked up some bottles of water at Home Depot and headed back to the house, navigating through flooded streets and around downed trees.
Most of Aiken consists of one-way roads, and there was a downed tree on almost every, single one. So it was like winding through an ever-changing maze full of complicated twists and turns.
We likely should’ve got in the truck and immediately went to fill up with gas since we had just 40 miles of range left, but we needed food.
That was mistake #2
We made friends with our next-door neighbor who generously offered to let us use his propane tank to heat up some food on the grill in our backyard. After a quick lunch, we headed back out at 2 pm with one goal in mind- fill up the truck with gas.
We wouldn’t get back home again until 9:30 pm that night.
The events of the day brought to mind something my pastor once told me.
He said that people are like sponges. Whatever is inside comes out when they’re squeezed.
If you’re filled with love, compassion, and empathy, that’s how you tend to respond toward others when you’re faced with difficult circumstances. But there’s the flip side of the coin as well. Pressure can bring about the absolute worst in people- anger, hate, and violence.
In a disaster situation like the aftermath of a hurricane, when supplies are scarce, humans tend to do one of two things. We either band together to help one another, or it’s every man for himself. And the latter is when things can get a bit dangerous…
Around this time we started to receive texts from our friends in Augusta. Like us, they were running low on gas after driving all the way from Florida the day before. Some were worse off than others.
Sebastian had 20 miles left. Mark and Karen had 4 miles left. Emily and Cameron had the most, so they headed toward Aiken to bring back gas for the others.
At this point, we went to Home Depot to get some gas cans, but as it turns out those were scarce as well. I made a friend with a nice, older gentlemen who let me know that a new supply of cans had just arrived off the truck!
Three of the five gas stations in Aiken had no power and the fourth quickly ran out of gas, which left one gas station to supply everyone. The line was only about a mile long, so we settled in, turned off the truck, and sat for two hours in 90 degree heat as the line inched forward very slowly.
Then we got a text from Emily. She and Cameron were out of range, stuck at a gas station with no power, 25 minutes north of us…
The first hour was fairly unremarkable, but we certainly saw some interesting things. One guy with no gas can improvised by filling up no less than five 2 liter Coke bottles. (Would definitely NOT recommend this plan. Also, why do you have that many empty Coke bottles?!)
Most people waited in their cars, but some just stood in line with gas cans in hand having walked from wherever far-off place they came from. We saw one guy offer to let another sit in his car.
Matt made friends with random folks and others tried to direct traffic in and out of the station, which was a total cluster. By then, only two of the pumps were working and they were running so slow.
It took a lady 20 minutes to put just $15 worth of gas in her car. TIP: We learned that premium fills much faster, so that was definitely our plan if we could get to the pump before gas ran out.
That’s when people started getting a bit desperate… And desperation can quickly turn dangerous.
With no officials to direct traffic, cars were getting blocked in and people were getting frustrated. Then, people started cutting in line and honking, which progressed to people getting out of their cars and screaming obscenities at each other.
Some “enterprising” folks decided to skip in the line entirely by walking up to whoever was currently at the pump and asking if they could use it. A guy tried that in front of us. I told him “Absolutely not.” He offered to give us $20 if we would let him. Yeah, no dice, buddy. The line is about a mile back there, start walking.
A fun wrinkle happened when it was our turn to pump, and the credit card machines stopped working. We only had $38 in cash so that’s all we got.
The situation was deteriorating rapidly. It was time to go.
We drove a half hour north to meet Emily and Cameron at a nearby McDonald’s to deliver them gas, so as not to flaunt available gas at a station that was empty.
While at said McDonald’s we were approached by a woman. Her name might have been Alicia or Amy, but she was stranded by the highway with an electric car that had no charge. She wanted to know if we could drive her to the next town over.
We don’t make a habit of picking up strangers off the side of the road, but the fact that she had a teenage daughter with her and was driving an electric Porsche led us to assume she wouldn’t try to murder us. Also, she was waiting on a tow truck from Augusta that, let’s face it, was never coming. We couldn’t let Alicia/Amy and her daughter sleep in their car by the highway…
So we, and our two new passengers, followed Emily and Cameron to a gas station in Columbia, 45 minutes away, so they could get a full tank and get gas to take back to Augusta for our stranded friends.
The next fun wrinkle came when we got an emergency alert text saying Aiken would be enforcing a curfew at 7:30 pm… It was 6:30 pm and there was absolutely no way we were getting back in time. Great.
Around 7:30, we dropped Alicia/Amy and her daughter off at the airport so at least they could get a rental car, and stay safe. At this point, we were just 15 minutes away from Matt’s aunt, so we dropped in for a quick, family reunion.
We hadn’t eaten in like 8 hours so dinner at Firehouse Subs was the best we could do before heading back to the disaster zone and taking a cold shower by flashlight.
The next morning, we tried to salvage what was left of our grand plans for an out of town training weekend by doing our 10-mile run around the neighborhood. There was only a 1-mile section that didn’t have downed trees, so we ran 10 laps while everyone in the neighborhood thought we’d lost our ever-loving minds.
The drive back home was a bit stressful and kind of sad to see how far the devastation had spread. It took us about 3 hours to get to a town that fully had power and didn’t have insane lines at gas stations.
And the next morning we did hook up with Sebastian to do that 4-hour bike ride, although it was on not nearly enough sleep, food, or mental capacity.
I have friends who still don’t have power in South Carolina and just looking at photos of Asheville, where we vacationed last Christmas, is depressing.
My dad spent the weekend helping his friends rip drywall out of their homes that flooded in Pirate Harbor. He said it’s the worst flooding the area has ever seen.
It’s always weird watching as a hurricane approaches. When you look at a storm track and hope that it misses your town, that means it’s going to hit somewhere else- where other people live, work, and go to school. I’m thankful we’re safe and able to resume life as normal, but I know there are a lot of people in the south who can’t. And that makes me sad.
Ultimately, besides prayer, the only thing you can do is try to help, however you can. Be the type of person who is patient, compassionate, and helpful in the face of adversity.
Be a good sponge. Not an old, moldy, smelly sponge.
Question of the Day:
Pablo (and like 4 other people)- Augusta 70.3 was my first half ironman. What happens now? Do they reschedule the race in a few weeks?
Brittany- So this was a very unusual circumstance. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that Ironman has cancelled an entire race. (Cancelling the swim is more frequent, as evident by Ironman Chattanooga) But there are a few options. I don’t work for Ironman in this capacity, so I can’t speak officially. I can only share our experiences as fellow athletes. Typically, you receive an email in about a week or so with your options. The default is you get to race at the same event the following year, but they typically offer other races that you can choose instead. For example, two of my friends have switched to 70.3 Florida in December and one was lucky enough to get into 70.3 North Carolina in October.
If you have a question about anything related to triathlon or mindset skills, send it over and Matt and I will be happy to answer!
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“He said that people are like sponges. Whatever is inside comes out when they’re squeezed.”
This sounds so true!
Glad you found your way through all of that. One thing I’ve learned from living in forest fire country is to always, always fill your vehicles when you get to half. The number of people that run out of gas in an evacuation is high.