For someone not in the path of a hurricane, it’s hard to imagine what it is really like. Sure, we see all the graphics and pictures on the news, the purple clouds highlighted on the weatherman’s screen, the trees falling into flooded streets, but we can’t know the experience of watching and waiting for the hurricane to land. Lucky for us, we know someone who does. We interviewed Maryellen Boggia, Xander’s aunt, who lives in Sarasota, FL. She has lived in Florida for almost 15 years, experienced multiple hurricanes, and has both evacuated and hunkered down before. With all of the hurricanes in the news as of lately, we sat down with her and asked her about her experiences, and if anything seemed different about these latest hurricanes.

Lorenzo and Xander (L&X): What do you think when you hear that a new hurricane is expected to hit Sarasota?

Maryellen (M): It’s always scary. Even when it’s “just” a category 2 or 3, you still never know what it’s going to be like. I like to say that every hurricane has their own personality, because they’re all different. Like [Hurricane] Ian didn’t have that much rain, but it was like a solid 16 hours of super strong wind and no power. When the wind is that strong, you can hear it so loud even in your house. You can hear the branches cracking and falling, and the whole time you’re just hoping that your house is going to be okay. But like [Hurricane] Debbie, it wasn’t so windy, just an absurd amount of water. Like a downpour for hours, nonstop. I thought that our basement was going to flood, but in the end it only got a little wet. At the time though, you don’t know that. You’re just nervously waiting, hoping, because you can’t do anything else.

L&X: Do you always evacuate?

M: No, not always. When they tell me to evacuate, I do, but if they don’t I usually like to stay, because when I leave the nerves just get too bad. Like maybe you’re safe and fine a couple hours away, but you have no clue whatsoever about what is happening back home! Your house could be completely destroyed and you would have no idea. It might seem weird to you, that you would prefer to be in the danger zone, but for me I know I just get too nervous that it’s worse to be away. I’m not stupid though, and when they tell me to evacuate I do. Like for Milton I evacuated, because it was a category 5!

L & X: How do they, I’m assuming the government, tell you to evacuate?

M: It’s just like an amber alert on your phone, but it’s so scary because it usually comes in the middle of the night, and the noise it makes is so horrible. Like *bzaaaaaa*. Even if you know it’s coming, like this time I knew that my area was going to be evacuated, but it still woke me up in the middle of the night.

L & X: Does everyone get evacuated at the same time?

M: Kind of. There are different zones based on the flood risks. Like the areas closest to the beach are classified as level A, and then a bit further away is level B, and then so on down to E. We live in level C, which means that even though we aren’t next to the beach, our houses don’t get the worst of it. Like the houses in level A, they might get the beach when it’s sunny, but they don’t have a good time when the hurricanes come.

L & X: How do you evacuate?

M: First, you have to make sure that all of your hurricane shutters are in place, because otherwise your windows are toast. So when we got the order to evacuate this time, we weren’t finished setting that up, so we did that quickly. Then we got in our car, and the traffic is always horrible because everyone is trying to evacuate at the same time. So like a normal trip to Fort Lauderdale is 3 hours, and this time it took 10. And once we get to the hotel all we can do is watch the news and pray that our house is okay. I think the worst thing is that you can’t just feel bad for all of the damage you see on the news, because the whole time you’re thinking “please let my house be ok, please let it hit someone else’s,” which feels so bad to think but it’s just your reaction.

L & X: Was there damage to your home?

M: No, thank god, there wasn’t anything bad at all, just a little bit of flooding. We were lucky really, because the hurricane just missed us. But even so, all around us there were fallen trees, fallen light poles, and we didn’t have power for a couple days at least. There’s a pond behind our backyard, and because it rose so much in the rain, there were fish swimming around in my backyard! But it’s not just the physical damage, these hurricanes disrupt so much. Schools close for weeks at time, and the break in learning really intervenes with learning, and that’s not even mentioning the emotional impact. And so many people in Florida can’t evacuate, because they’re senior citizens, or they don’t have the money, or they’re job doesn’t allow them to. Even when your house doesn’t get destroyed it still affects you. With hurricanes becoming more and more frequent, it’s just going to get harder and harder for those people.

L & X: Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

We hope that this has provided you with a better understanding of the real situation in Florida. If you would like to donate to relief efforts, you can do so with this link: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/