Those of us of a certain age — aka Baby Boomers — once equated “Milton” with an odd, cross-dressing comic who appeared on a new marvel in life—the television. But Uncle Miltie is long gone, and when a hurricane was recently named Milton, many of us thought it was a nerdy name for a storm.
I’m sorry.
I was wrong.
I will never make fun of hurricanes again.
Milton knocked the starch out of Florida, accomplishing what his sister, Helene, was once forecast to do. Helene, as we know, was destined to demolish parts of North Carolina, but she left her calling card in Florida. With a dramatic storm surge in Florida and torrential rains in Appalachia, Helene will forever be known as the storm that drowned dreams and people.
Milton was more of a wind entity. It failed to produce the predicted and horrifying 15-foot surge in Tampa Bay. But with 120 mph winds and a size that covered the peninsula, Milton quite simply bulldozed his way across the Sunshine State. He did an excellent job of flattening trees, houses, and dreams. Even before these two storms I read that people no longer consider Florida a retirement haven. Milton could be the final nail in that coffin.
Those of us who have grown up and lived in Florida have been saying it for years: All it will take is one good storm to flatten the poorly constructed, ridiculously priced, zero-lot-line, “retirement” homes that have popped up in this state like mushrooms after the rain. Milton did not discriminate based on housing costs. From the small trailer to the most expensive mega-mansions on the Gulf Coast, Milton slammed through all of them with a relish that stunned us. It even altered topography, opening the long-blocked Midnight Pass on Siesta Key.
In 1983, two homeowners closed the Pass without permission to protect their beachfront property. That particular effort failed, and those houses were swallowed by the Gulf. But the Pass remained closed, altering the marine life in Little Sarasota Bay. The thirty-year effort to manually reopen the illegally blocked channel got its first helping hand from Helene, which opened a small trickle. Milton finished the job. Midnight Pass is open! Perhaps something good came from all this.
On a personal level, I came through the storm just fine. My 1962 home, built like a bunker from cinder blocks and updated with Dade County Code windows, withstood Milton’s wrath. The 13 oaks on my property are all still standing, albeit a lot thinner than they once were. On the bright side, there will be a lot fewer leaves to rake when Florida experiences its version of an autumnal leaf fall in February and March. I was particularly concerned about my legacy oak, which is probably as old as I am, 78. But she shed a few branches and stood tall. As you can see, she shed quite a few branches along with the others. The cleanup in my yard alone is a massive amount of yard waste. Landfills in Florida are filling fast after the twin visits of Helene and Milton.
It is said that this spate of severe storms is a result of global warming. I believe it, but hurricanes have been a fact of life for a long, long time. And history has some remarkable and relatively unknown stories of severe hurricanes. In 1814, the British were burning the buildings in the fledgling capital of Washington, DC, and it looked as though they would prevail in the War of 1812. But on August 25, 1814, a “freak” storm arose with torrential rains that doused the fires in Washington. There were fierce winds and tornadoes that lifted canons off the ground. With no safe housing, the British soldiers had to endure the storm while totally exposed to the elements. More British soldiers died as a result of that storm than the actual fighting. When calm returned, the British turned heel and retreated.
This 1814 freak storm was undoubtedly a hurricane, although it lacks a name. Significant storms have been given names for centuries but the practice of naming every tropical storm and hurricane is a modern practice that dates to 1979. The names of significant storms, like Helene and Milton, are retired, living in infamy, or perhaps the yet-to-be-built Hurricane Hall of Fame. I know I won’t forget them, and I’ll never again call a hurricane nerdy. I know many nerds, and I’m a bit of one myself. Milton was no nerd. Milton was a killer of lives and dreams. ❧
References
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/12/burning-of-washington/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tropical_cyclone_naming
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