Key West Florida Weekly

TROPICAL DEPRESSION




 

 

Weather has finally made the “A” list: Climbed out of the pages of the Farmers’ Almanac, forced its way from the rear to the front of local and national television newscasts, demanded front-page billing above the fold in the nation’s most respectable online and print media, and turned a formerly tentative citizenry into a near cavalcade of Chicken Littles. They rush around emptying stores and service stations of water, canned food and gasoline days before a storm that may or may not reach them approaches, filling social media in the meantime with calamitous alarms.

Most of us aren’t growing crops and we no longer behave like the cool-headed weather watchers of old, the farmers and fishermen. Those old boys and girls just cast a knowing eye to the sky, sniffed the wind, and said, “Looks like rain.”

If they waited a moment, somebody else might spit in the dirt and say, “Yup. Smells like it, too.”

Now we’re a society of weather worriers, a region if not a nation saddled with tropical depression — not the climatological but the psychological kind. Many may be afflicted with a condition known as “weather fatigue,” akin to post-traumatic stress disorder but inspired by natural, not man-made events, some experts say.

Aerial image of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in the Florida Keys. COURTESY PHOTO

Aerial image of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in the Florida Keys. COURTESY PHOTO

A Fort Myers writer and book author, Rick Weber, put it like this in a Facebook post aimed at Pennsylvania friends who may not understand how serious weather fatigue can be: “Paradise has its pitfalls. Perhaps the biggest: hurricane season. It’s stressful. Even when we dodge a bullet — as we in (southeast and southwest) Florida appear to have done — we know it’s not over. Speaking for myself, I am wracked by guilt as I watch Dorian destroy the Bahamas and head for a possible landfall in the Carolinas. I’ve been through so many of these — I was part of the two largest mass evacuations in U.S. history — but they’re never easy.”

He asked his northern friends to pray for those in the Bahamas, even if such a storm is not part of their situational awareness in life.

LIPSHUTZ

LIPSHUTZ

“We may find ourselves going through tense, unpredictable emotions,” wrote Linda Lipshutz after Hurricane Irma stormed through south Florida two years ago this month.

A Florida Weekly columnist and psychotherapist based in Palm Beach Gardens with degrees from both Cornell and Columbia universities, she added this: “We might discover that we are physically exhausted, irritable, nervous or even tearful. Our moods may swing back and forth from a sense of well-being to a sense of vulnerability and dread. We might find ourselves reacting atypically to other people or situations, or find ourselves withdrawing from previously enjoyed activities.”

What can we do, she was asked in a recent telephone conversation? “If we take a deep breath and realize we’re going to see the best and worst in people around us — if we make some allowances — we’re (not as likely) to get triggered,” she said.

BELL

BELL

Our contemporary farmers, confronted, perhaps, with a larger awareness of weather, may think about it more deeply than the old-timers, who often just wondered (reasonably) how weather would affect them and their neighbors.

What fatigues today’s farmers may be related to weather, but not weather itself.

“Do I get ‘tropical depression?’” asks Millisa Bell, an organic farmer and permaculturist who banks seeds to produce sustainable food crops on her properties in southwest and north central Florida. She also raises poultry, rabbits, worms and bees.

“Often. But it’s not the unpredictability of the weather that stresses me out so much as the loss of quality in all those other areas of farming that we rely on. Water and air quality, soil health, increased pest and disease pressure, and so on. Of course, weather plays a role in all of this, but the human contributions to these things coupled with the growth machine are what really get me down.”

“I’m not weather fatigued and I don’t think our viewers are fatigued by weather or weather stories. Maybe I have a biased opinion because I find weather interesting. But whether we’re facing brush fires or hurricanes or anything else, ‘weather’ is important because those things impact everybody.” — Allyson Rae, chief meteorologist at NBC2 in Fort Myers

“I’m not weather fatigued and I don’t think our viewers are fatigued by weather or weather stories. Maybe I have a biased opinion because I find weather interesting. But whether we’re facing brush fires or hurricanes or anything else, ‘weather’ is important because those things impact everybody.” — Allyson Rae, chief meteorologist at NBC2 in Fort Myers

The rest of us

As it stands now for those who are not farmers (about 98 percent of the American population), we have angels on one shoulder and — not devils, they’re hunkered down in an emergency shelter somewhere — meteorologists on the other shoulder.

Those data-driven men and women can track storms thousands of miles away and long before they cross vast oceans and periodically flood our properties, close our businesses, destroy our possessions and take away our children’s inheritances.

When they tell us about weather, which is every day, people generally do one of two things, the experts say: They refuse to worry or they worry themselves half to death.

Some worry so much they require therapy.

That seems especially true after meteorologists and other newscasters tell us about everything else associated with weather: the ferocious and undeniable consequences of climate change; the hottest July in the history of the planet, just two months ago; the Amazon burning with thousands of fires, pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and altering the weather; enough rain to float the Queen Mary down a creek near your house — a creek that may be drowning in toxic algae.

“I have lost two homes to storms in the past — Georges in 1998 and Wilma in 2005 — and I know firsthand the stress, the loss, the frustration and the grief that ensue after the trauma of a major storm. I wanted to connect with people and support them in a nourishing way.” — Layla Barr, (center) a celebrated chef, caterer and food guru based in Key West

“I have lost two homes to storms in the past — Georges in 1998 and Wilma in 2005 — and I know firsthand the stress, the loss, the frustration and the grief that ensue after the trauma of a major storm. I wanted to connect with people and support them in a nourishing way.” — Layla Barr, (center) a celebrated chef, caterer and food guru based in Key West

All that’s before any mention of a hurricane. And not just one or two, but five or 10 or 50 hurricanes. Hurricane after bloody hurricane: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Michael, and the tyrant Dorian, along with many others.

Together like a single cacophonous chorus they seem to thunder: “There’s no escape from the weather!”

If you feel that way, recognize it for what it likely is: weather fatigue. And consider adopting the attitudes of the newscasters responsible for reporting on the weather, both before and after disaster strikes.

The media

Journalists, the (ideally) objective reporters who are often among the first responders to weather-related disasters, can’t afford to suffer from weather fatigue. Especially not those who write for the nation’s most prestigious publications and whose reports on meteorological phenomena are read by hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people worldwide.

“What I do — there’s so much information coming out from different forms of media, especially social media and national media — I have to turn them off. I don’t watch any of them when big events come around. I suggest other people do that, too. — Bob Harrigan, chief meteorologist at ABC7 WWSB in Sarasota

“What I do — there’s so much information coming out from different forms of media, especially social media and national media — I have to turn them off. I don’t watch any of them when big events come around. I suggest other people do that, too. — Bob Harrigan, chief meteorologist at ABC7 WWSB in Sarasota

Frances Robles is a national and foreign correspondent for The New York Times based in Key West and Miami. Acting in her official capacity as a conveyer of fact, Ms. Robles covered the effects of Hurricane Irma in both Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and she is reporting as we speak on the horrors Hurricane Dorian wrought on the Bahamas. Just last week, she went on a flyover of the Abacos and Grand Bahama Island to catalog the devastation.

In order to do her job effectively, Ms. Robles has to hope for the best but always anticipate the worst.

“Well, I tend to be hyper-prepared for things like hurricanes,” she said. “I have a somewhat ridiculous amount of tuna fish and snacks, a solar lamp, propane stove, battery-operated fan, et cetera. My perspective on the weather is informed by my time spent in Key West just a few days after Hurricane Irma. I also went back a second time a few days later and everyone was running out of supplies and complaining that FEMA had not come, conveniently forgetting that the instructions had been to evacuate. I slept outside on my porch. The heat was truly unbearable. That alone, to me, is cause to evacuate. If I had a choice, and as a reporter I don’t, I would go somewhere with air conditioning. I have met people who have lost absolutely everything, including loved ones, so I think I have a bit more respect for weather than other people.”

Whether or not you have a choice to engage in the hysterical hype machine of pre- and post-storm coverage in the media, preparedness may be the best tool we have to combat — or at least lessen — the weather-inspired worries that hold us hostage.

The doers

Some people don’t merely tune into the media and fret — they turn their worry into significant action. They do something about the weather — in particular about catastrophic weather events — inviting other worriers to put down weather fatigue and pick up altruism.

Helping somebody else hammered by weather may be the single greatest antidote to weather fatigue, suggests Layla Barr, a celebrated chef, caterer, nutritionist and food guru based in Key West.

After Irma walloped the Florida Keys a mere 24 months ago, Ms. Barr and her team walloped back the only way they knew how — by nourishing the bodies of the Keys residents most impacted by the storm in the hopes that they could nourish their souls, too. Together with Margit Bisztray, a longtime Key West resident, Ms. Barr organized a group of mostly local Florida Keys women and formed what they called Nourishing the Lower Keys.

Their mission was to cook healthy and nourishing meals and deliver them to people in the areas most devastated after Irma, including Ramrod Key, Little Torch Key and Big Pine Key. Utilizing canned and non-perishable foods, much of which had been collected by local shelters but were of little use to people with no means to prepare them, Ms. Barr’s outfit prepared hot meals and distributed them in the disaster zone.

“Offering a home cooked meal in times of crises creates connection and helps people feel nurtured, both physically and emotionally,” Ms. Barr said. “I felt called to get involved because the level of devastation in our islands was indescribable. I have lost two homes to storms in the past — Georges in 1998 and Wilma in 2005 — and I know firsthand the stress, the loss, the frustration and the grief that ensue after the trauma of a major storm. I wanted to connect with people and support them in a nourishing way. Nourishment comes in many form — connection and compassion being the most important.”

And last week Ms. Barr picked up right where she left off after Irma, joining forces with Key West Cares, a local organization created specifically to coordinate relief efforts for those impacted by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, and starting a nonprofit of her own called HEARTpack, with fellow Key West residents Oakleigh Waits and Susan Beale. To help children and parents get back on track after crisis, HEARTpack (which stands for Helping Empower individuals and Actively Rebuilding communities Together) will distribute backpacks filled with educational materials, emergency supplies and care kits, along with notes of love and support.

“We created HEARTpack because, after having experienced several disasters ourselves, we have seen the evolution of need that occurs in communities after a crisis,” Ms. Barr said. “Recovery after a devastating hurricane like Dorian is a process. There are many phases. The rebuilding of communities takes time and there will be a continued need for support for many months and years to come. We are One Human Family. We are families helping families. We are communities helping communities. Together we can do more than we can do alone. Every little bit helps.”

With that philosophy in mind, on Monday, while Dorian altered what we formerly knew of the Bahamas, squatting over the archipelago like a motionless tyrant, Ms. Barr tapped her One Human Family for support. On social media, she posted a link to an Amazon wish list for needed supplies and she has shared numerous posts from the Key West Cares organization page.

“As always, the Key West community has risen up in a time of need,” Ms. Barr said. “The collective Key West Cares organization is putting into motion a tremendous relief effort, organizing donations and coordinating fundraising events, transportation and communication with the Bahamian government in order to get the aid where it needs to go in a safe manner.”

But Ms. Barr acknowledges that, for all the benefits altruism brings to others and to the altruist herself, doing good can’t quite eradicate weather fatigue altogether.

“Volunteering in a disaster zone has an evolution of effects,” she said. “Although I was inspired daily by the outpouring of generosity from communities circling to help rebuild and by the strength and vulnerability of the people we were helping, there is definitely a level of fatigue — both physical and emotional — that sets in after months of working in situations like this. Interestingly, I believe that volunteering after Irma in 2017 helped heal some of the PTSD I had been dealing with since Wilma in 2005.”

Crisis relief may not be easy work, but at least she isn’t sitting around twiddling her thumbs and letting herself succumb to weather fatigue. ¦

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