Hurricane Tattoos

Last Thursday, the pine trees were dancing like inflatable tube men, the power was out, Hurricane Idalia was here, and I was in my element. I suspect that hurricanes and I are made of the same substance, and despite their danger, I love them.

Which is why I got this hurricane tattoo on my ankle. I don’t want to tell you how awkward it was to photograph my own ankle, posed sideways against my Trapper Keeper, in the car’s driver seat, in the coffee shop parking lot, so I could both enjoy the cool post-storm weather and access free WiFi. It wasn’t pretty.

My best friend from grad school, Lea, has a matching tattoo – we got them in lieu of graduation rings or other sensible mementos. We’d earned Masters degrees in teaching science, from a NC coastal college – what was more appropriate than hurricane tracking symbols? The deal was, if we ever got our PhDs, we could add a “5” to the hurricane’s eye. Neither of us have a “5,” but Lea started a PhD program, so she at least earned a “3,” in my opinion.

A category 3 hurricane is the strongest I’ve experienced – Hurricane Fran, from 1996, when we lived oceanfront in Atlantic Beach. A news crew came to interview my family: the fools who stayed. But the house, built in 1939, had seen bigger beasts, like Hurricane Hazel in 1954; had stood up to wind, rain, and waves. It had survived before, and we expected it would again.

It was a wooden house – four stories, all wood except the cinderblock garage at the base. The ceiling, walls, and floors were wood – a wooden staircase climbed through the house’s center, to the full-story attic with open windows, where the wind howled so loudly at night, I can still hear it today.

Hurricanes always come at night; it’s a rule of the storm. I went to bed on the third floor, feeling the upper stories sway in one hundred mile an hour winds, the rain beating against the boarded-up windows, begging to be let in, until eventually, it was.

Rain cascaded down the walls like a waterfall. I stuck my finger in the sheet of water just to make sure it was real. You can still see the watermarks today, pale streaks on dark-stained oak walls.

In the morning, there was water flowing between the dunes and the house, where the ocean had broken through the dune-line and ran parallel to shore until it found another outlet. We rode that lazy river on blow-up beach rafts, delighted.

I think that was during Fran, but I can’t be sure. All the hurricanes blend together, there were so many. During which storm did I walk on the beach in the eye, the sky a churning cauldron above, the air damp and charged, the light a sickly gray-yellow color?

And during which hurricane did a 2×4 go through my dad’s roof, picked up by a tornado and hurled like a Highland warrior? Which one had the frogs piggybacking in the flooded streets, then a million frog babies, soon squashed by traffic?

And when did I lean into the hurricane’s wind, letting it hold me up, fighting to stay in one place, the threat of flying never so real, never so possible? It happened more than once. I hope it happens again.

I’m currently reading Time and Tide: The Vanishing Culture of the North Carolina Coast, by local author Tim Hatcher, a compendium of all things pertaining to eastern NC. It would be a good place to start for a newcomer wanting to know more about the region or an attractive addition to a beach cottage library. Hatcher’s work spans the fields of coastal science, history, people, and even politics, a little something for every reader.

In Chapter 3 on weather, Hatcher details each major storm to hit our shores, and taken all together like that, it sure does sound like we’re a sitting duck. I used to show a hurricane tracking map of the last 100 years to my science classes, and the cross-hairs centered over SE NC. Bam! Here comes another one!

In the past, that meant I’d load up on beer – beer I could tolerate warm – something in a green bottle, for when the cooler ice melted and it was eighty degrees outside. I’d buy plenty of chips and cans of soup, fill the bathtubs with water, and ride out the storm, thrilled at the drop in pressure, the whipping trees, that buoyant wind.

Now, with two young children and home ownership, hurricanes mean evacuation and fretting about our house. Since Idalia was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it arrived, we decided to stay. It came at night, and I scooped the kids into bed with me, away from the live oaks by their rooms. In the morning, the power was out and the storm was on.

We walked to the neighbor’s house across the street, facing Bogue Sound, and stood on the shore, hair blown back from our faces, waves splashing us like spectators at a log jammer ride. My five-year-old went right up to the seawall and danced, ninja fighting the waves with all his might, singing and shouting like a wild animal. I was so proud.

Maybe one day he’ll get a hurricane tattoo and earn that “5.”

by Jessi Waugh