Waves in the big pool

well - waves in the big gulf really :)

Hurricane Ike on the Emerald Coast

The kids and I stopped at James E. Lee park in Destin to see the waves and listen to the roar of the Gulf. It was pretty impressive!

The foolish man builds his house upon the sand

A long time ago - before I had children - I was a journalist for one of the local papers. I wrote about a lot of different topics, but one of my long-term assignments was to cover beach renourishment in the local community. As a beach community - this area - Destin in particular - has fabulous white sand beaches and emerald green waters. Tourism is one of the major industries (that and the military). People come for the beaches - captivated and entranced by their beauty.

So they leave their Mid-western homes and come here to live hoping for paradise.

As - if!

Our beaches are in trouble - countless hurricanes and tropical storms have stripped the beaches to small stretches of white sand - where once it might have taken minutes to reach the water it now takes only seconds. 

In years past I interviewed homeowners - you know the ones who actually LIVE on the beach. 

You see, the re-nourishment required the state to set an Erosion Control Line or ECL - and this entailed laws that said everything south of (or to the water's edge) would belong to the State and therefore be considered public beach. 

A lot of homeowners had a problem with this. They didn't want to share "their" beach. 

There was one lady who would sit at the end of her dock with a megaphone - ordering people to get off her beach - even going so far as to call the cops because people were "trespassing."

Lawsuits were filed and it got to the point that anyone against the renourishment wouldn't talk to me on the record for the paper. 

We've lost a lot of our coastal dunes in this area - and the dunes are what protect the inland areas from flooding, storm surge and erosion during these storms we get each year. 

It takes years for these dunes to rebuild themselves  - and it hasn't been long enough for them to be any good at protecting anything quite yet.

On the day that Gustav was rolling in to Louisiana - my husband and I took Wyatt to Destin and we went to look at the beach. We were next to the Back Porch Restaurant - where many condos are still boarded up and for sale - from Ivan in 2004. 

I was shocked to see how close the water was to these buildings - the waves were crashing and flowing underneath the buildings once again. We were maybe 30 feet away - in a parking lot and the water was so very close. 

As a journalist - I wasn't supposed to be biased - but now as a "civilian" I can have my own opinion. 

Surprisingly I'm finding myself against renourishment - but not for the same reasons as all the other selfish beachfront owners.

I firmly believe that the beach belongs to everyone. I could get Biblical on you, but I'll try not to...

I also firmly believe that constructing buildings directly on the beach is stupid - for lack of a better word!

Sand is not static - the dynamics of the beach are always changing - daily, seasonally, yearly, etc. 

Knowing this - why would a person waste so much money and take such chances just to live in a house that has a pretty good chance of washing away, blowing over or being otherwise seriously damaged in an area that is very prone to serious tropical weather?

When Gustav rolled all those big waves into our area - we lost most of what the renourishment had given back. That's millions of dollars wasted - and I'm sure there is talk already of more renourishment.

Mother Nature is not a force to be reckoned with - She's angry and sweet all in one moment - and there is nothing MAN can do to tame her. 

It's almost as if she's laughing right now - at all the people who filed lawsuits against the renourishment and for the renourishment. 

"You silly people - who do you think YOU are that you can stop ME?" she's asking.

So as we're facing another hurricane - that looks like it's going to miss us - there will no doubt be more damage to our beaches.

Everything in life has a cycle- and there will be times when the beaches are lacking sufficient sand, and times when we'll have plenty. Interfering with Mother Nature - or God's perfect design of the world - in order to protect a house or condo that really shouldn't have been built on the beach in the first place - well it just seems common sense to me that Man will always lose.

From the Gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 7:26 (The Message)

26-27"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."

The sad part is we can't realistically go back to how it should be - one can't realistically tear down hundreds of houses and condos. So we'll just have to continue watching them be destroyed - and feel sorry for those who lose their homes and treasures.

Gearing up...

What I'd like to be doing is writing about the amazing insight I have had recently into life with two toddlers - but instead I'm stuck thinking about Hurricane Gustav and where he's planning to hit...

The five-day forecast brings the storm into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico - and depending on a pressure system that hasn't yet revealed what it's plans are - could come to us in the Panhandle - Mississippi/New Orleans or Texas...

Around here - early preparation is important and for our family it is a must. Not just preparing the house and family, but safeguarding the boats that are our livelihood.

Tomorrow - Wednesday - Mike and his partner are going scouting up the "Ditch" - an intercoastal waterway - to look for safe havens for the 12-13 boats they have to move. They've been putting the hurricane gear - heavy ropes and big anchors on the boats - getting them ready.

They start moving them on Thursday - you can't wait until the last minute because there will be no place to put them -

Mike and my brother worked in the storage building tonight - clearing it out to make room for the outdoor toys and making sure they could easily get to the hurricane boards and plylox for securing the house if it's necessary.

I am frustrated at not having a good hurricane kit prepared and now feel stressed at having to put one together at short notice. Mike said not to worry about doing it myself - with the kids by myself and that we'd work on it together, but I'm feeling crunched for time.

I'm probably worrying for nothing, but honestly it's been years since i've weathered a hurricane - since my childhood - I've left for all the other storms in our recent history. We evacuated for Ivan - thankfully - and then I flew out to Indiana with Maddie when she was just 4 months old - for Dennis - a Cat. 4 that either missed us or fizzled out last minute.

Add that stress to my exhaustion from the tea and Wyatt's refusal to sleep at night..

but watching him hug maddie brings me such joy that i forget my nightly frustrations when it comes to sleep.

And i hope that gustav stays out of my dreams

One step closer

Well we bought the floors tonight! 

We loaded up the family and drove to Panama City to the Sam's Club there (It was the nearest one that had enough of the flooring we needed). The kids did great on the drive over and watched Mary Poppins - well Wyatt slept the entire way because he never did take a nap this afternoon. 

So here it is - in the poor lighting and not so great camera quality. We bought 44 boxes - enough to do all the house except the bathrooms, bedrooms and laundry room. 

So barring any hurricane activity we'll be busy for the next few weeks. Mike has already gone and fueled up the big boats and I made a list for him tonight of the ones that will need to be moved and where the options are to take them...

It will be a lot of work, so let's pray that it doesn't happen.

Off to dream of wood floors :)