Friday, May 20, 2005

Mom, where's the hurricane?

No, it was not my daughter, it was a 5 year old boy asking his mother while looking through the window from the apartment building where Manuel (my boyfriend) lives.

The hurricane was supposed to hit ground yesterday at 3pm.

1:00 pm They evacuated us from the office at 1:00pm. Electricity was gone at the apartment, some random incident, not related to the situation. Food... is anything open? McDonalds and my favorite rest. "Diva's" were the only ones open. A fine California salmon wrap and we were ready to subsist for the next 12 hours of hurricane fury.
Enough water, enough canned food, candles, diapers and gerbers, oh! and a deck of cards.

3:00 pm. It's raining outside, nothing to worry still, its cold, around 17C, not too much wind. Well the hurricane is supposed to be in the coast by now.
---"Hurricane Adrian seems to be gaining strength in the Pacific, it has increased its size, and winds are of around 130Miles per hour right now... its expected to hit groun at 6 pm" ---
"It only entered salvadorean coastline and its already grabbed its culture of being late", says another friend of Manuel while laughing.

4:00 pm. Let's bake a chocolate cake, it doesn't need refrigeration and we can eat it anyway.

5:00 pm. Ana Paola is desperate... let's take her with her friend, Emilio, across the street... and let's bring some chocolate cake for his parents.

6:00 pm. ---"Hurricane Adrian has renewed its movement towards the coastline, expecting to hit it within the next 2 hours" ---

7:30 pm. Ana Paola falls asleep, we have dinner with my family... its raining outside and its colder, you can feel the winde blow through the plastic covers we have put through the terrace.. "now it's coming" says my step brother.

9:00 pm. It should be by the coast already, all flights were canceled at 6 pm, its raining and its cold. The hurricane will hit by night, this is not good. Poor people out there. We are playing cards, I am losing. Ana Paola wakes up because of the noise of the wind and rain, or because she wanted her diaper to be changed. I put her back to sleep.

10:00 pm. ---"Hurricane Adrian has dissapeared, 5 minutes after touching salvadorean ground, the eye of the hurricane dissolved, the winds ceased from 130miles per hour to 40 miles per hour, its now officially a tropical storm"---

11:00 pm. ---"Tropical Storm Adrian has slowed down, clouds difused and the National Hurricane center has downgraded it to tropical depression"---

"Mom, where's the hurricane?" - despite the emotion and anxiety caused by something new that never comes... the entire country believes our name is not in vain "El Salvador" ("The Saviour") still looks after his children.
No deaths, 4 million tons of food waiting in shelters to be distributed to families that were evacuated (and that will be distributed), some floods near rivers due to constant rain and no further damages to count.

It's 8 am and I am back in the office. Bummer!!


1 Comments:

At 7:59 PM , Blogger Ying said...

hey babe, glad to see that you are safe and sound, and the pple in your cty as well, too many natural disasters for the world lately, we could do less with one.:)

 

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