Ay Emilia! Stay Away.

Hurricane Emily sure is causing headaches for folks along the Gulf of Mexico. I'm lucky, I have fun hurricane stories. Today my pops called me during class to ask if I still had contacts at the local t.v. station because the city was ignoring him. He wanted them to pick up all of the debris (tree branches, rocks, dirt) next to the house (the local community college is building a parking lot) so that the winds would't send all that mugrero crashing over to the house. The city manager had already returned his call by the time I got in touch with him, before my Dad could sick the news on him. I thought it was hillarious. (this is for another post, but he would have never of thought of doing that before I became a reporter and the debris would have probably never been removed -- see, going to college does pay off).

I called home this evening and my folks told me that they had started boarding up the windows, moved all of the lawn chairs and other chingaderas that could fly away into the storage room, and cleaned out the garage to make room for a car. I think the tabla from the window to my old room stayed covering the window for about 6 years and finally fell off last year. We'll see how long those boards last this time - kinda like christmas lights.

When I was a kid, and since we lived in El Campito where the houses weren't very sturdy, we used to go to a shelter everytime a Hurricane came. The red cross ran the joint and chingos of poor families would trickle in as the rains got worse. The red cross provided food and blankets, sometimes. It was interesting. I remember looking across the hall (at the h.s.) and seeing hundreds of people just laying on the floor with their blankets. Every now and then someone would cough and then a flashlight would turn on. My older siblings made friends with the red cross volunteers and they'd become part of the volunteer team. My dad would meet every damn person there while he was walking around the halls whistling. I think I just watched and ran around the school which I thought was huge. Then, the hurricane would be over, and ya. Otra vez. Back home.

We stopped going to shelters when I got to 8th grade I think. I think I missed them for a while. Seeing all of the people there was kind of cool, even though I didn't realize we were there because we didn't have a house that could withstand the storm. I just hope people don't have to go to shelters this year. I hope Emilia stays away.