While Matthew was a gentle and confident lover, Florence was into bondage and had a water fetish.

Should we stay or should we go? My husband I debated it like an impending divorce. My pastor who was staying in Wilmington said, “I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as they say.” We decided to stay.

The day before she arrived, I brought supplies to a friend who had opened his home to the extreme poverty stricken, as many could not get into hurricane shelters without valid ID. Driving home, Wilmington reminded me of my college town in the summer: you could feel in the air that 20,000 people had left.

We took in a couple who had no where else to go. The four of us rode out the storm together.

My experience with Florence was a lot of talk and not a lot of action. Oh, you’re making the trees bend in half and defoliated everything? Fine, whatever.

At the Dovecote, we had loads of wind and a large tree branch come down. I kept walking down the street to see if ocean front property was in my future. Thankfully, we stayed high and dry. We lost power for three days – the longest I have ever gone without electricity. There was a creepy silence in the house without any appliances humming, but lighting the house by candlelight was good for my soul. The humidity shot up to 80% inside and there wasn’t a darn thing we could do about it. I like it hot, but even I was getting uncomfortable.

For me, the craziest part came after the storm. 50+ cars in line for gas was something I had never seen before. Wilmington became an island: all the roads into town had flooded out, so trucks bringing food, gas, and other supplies were cut off until further notice.

I stopped at Food Lion to grab some things just in case the roads stayed flooded. There was a line at the door, a man with a headset stood guard. “What’s the line for?” I inquired. “To get in,” a lady said. They were only allowing five people in the store at a time. The old lady behind me was there for cigarettes, sitting on a bin because her labored breathing made it hard to stand. “Gotta git muh cigs,” she kept muttering under her breath. Most everyone was there for cigarettes. Several cars rolled by shouting, “Y’all got ice?” “No!”

Like standing in line for the club, the doorman finally let me in. Only shelf stable food remained: no frozen, no meat, no produce, no dairy. I turned into a 12 year old and grabbed random food items that made no sense, completely thrown from my usual staples. “Any idea when the trucks can make it back into town?” I asked the lady at the register. “Nope.”

We were incredibly lucky. We knew people who lost everything and their insurance just shrugged at their loss. The displacement of people, how everything bloomed again like it was spring, followed by a muted spring, kept reminding me of this terrible storm. I know people who are still without a home, a year later, still trying to rebuild what Florence destroyed.

When it was all said and done, I lost 50 hours of work. I ate all of it. That caused some serious indigestion, but my home and my family were safe, and for that, I was thankful. In the weeks to come, we helped with the clean up effort.

And I must say, I am bit more than worried about what’s coming our way in the next few days.