Joyanna Adams

Nobody Remembers Hurricane Donna

Nobody Remembers: I was only a kid when Hurricane Donna hit my hometown of Naples, Florida in 1960. While the recent Hurricane Ian destroyed Ft. Meyers Beach, it wasn’t as powerful as Donna was back then. Naples was a smaller town, only about 10,000, but there were many rich houses on the beaches and the hotels.

I remember that day well. My father had the house BUILT to withstand a hurricane, and there he was beaming, joking and smiling, in the living room, putting golf balls into an aluminun cup, while outside, the winds got up to 200mph. Everyone was scared…except my dad. Later on I realized that he had served in the Pacific during WWII, so this was nothing to him.

Not so to his kids and his wife. My mother became histerical as we watched our neighbors roof blow off, very slowly, like opening a can of Pork and Beans, and then watched it fall on their front lawn. And we also watched as Arnie the Italian, and his Seminole Indian wife June, leaned against the winds to reach our house for shelter, dragging two kids and a bag of food. Each step they took was hard, and in itself, was a miracle. And when they got inside the front door, it took five men to shut it.

June, who was 8 months pregnant fell to the floor. I’ve never seen my mother so frantic. She was screaming. “She’s going to have her baby!” Okay I thought. That is what? How is that so alarming?

Well, she didn’t.

The eye lasted an hour, and my brother and I went outside with dad. We climbed up on the downed trees, that looked as if a giant boot has just stepped on them and crushed them all. I thought it was fun.

When we went inside, Dad opend and closed the opposite windows in the house, which he said was very important. If we did that, we’d be okay. He was right. Our house suffered no damage at all.

After the storm, my father gathered up the men in the neighborhood, and they went out to help whomever they could. He was gone all day.

It took only a week to get things back in order. Now, today, Rosa, my friend from Puerto Rico, said that when Hurricane Irma and Maria hit, they were without power for over 6 months. She said the help from the United States didn’t even exist untill some electricians from Oklahoma came down. It was horrible she said.

But, this is the biggest memory of all for me. After the hurricane we were driving up to Ft. Myers from Naples, and we always passed this little shack which was still standing. The Hurricane didn’t even touch it, even though it tore up whole hotels and houses.

“Dad…how come that little shack still stands.”

“Because the wind just blew right through it. See the wood planks?”

“You mean somebody lives there.” I asked.

“Yes, they call him Nature Boy. He’s been there for years. Lives alone.”

I’m not sure if it was that day, or later when I heard this song, “Nature Boy”And I thought of that shack, and that man. Did they write the song about him I wondered?

It’s haunting, beautiful. And I was playing it the other day on my piano and thinking of true love.”

Funny how time circles back to you, and the silliest things you remember from your life, isn’t it?

If you are young, give a listen anyway. It’s short, and it WILL haunt you, I promise.

As far as Hurricanes are concerned…shit happens. Lessons learned?

Be prepared. For anything.

December 29, 2023 - Posted by Joyanna Adams | Uncategorized