Weathering the Storm

Received two interesting e-mails on Wednesday, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The first was from the offices of Conference USA, whose members include Tulane and Southern Miss, two campuses hit hard by the storm's destruction.

The release read, in part: "Tulane's football and women's soccer teams have relocated to Dallas and Birmingham, Ala., respectively, and taken advantage of the hospitality from other C-USA member schools SMU and UAB. The Southern Miss football team also received a generous offer from Memphis to share facilities until power is restored on the Hattiesburg, Miss., campus and will head to Memphis on Thursday morning."

CUSA commissioner Britton Banowsky noted, "Some of these student-athletes and coaches are just getting their first hot shower in days, and we know they are worried that some of their families are still waiting for such a luxury."

The second e-mail was from the University of Florida. On Saturday, the Gators open their football season at home against Wyoming, a game that is available on pay-per-view. UF announced that it will donate all of the proceeds from that broadcast, totaling approximately $75,000 dollars, to the American Red Cross.

Said Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley: "Floridians endured four
hurricanes last year and understand the amount of work the affected
areas have in front of them. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been so severely impacted by this devastating hurricane."

Longing for a shower, and knowing that there's nothing but heavy lifting ahead. Reminds me of last summer here in Orlando.

In my hometown of Winter Park, my block was without power for a total of about two weeks, spread over two different storms - Charley being the biggest bastard of the summer. In our one-story cinder block house - God bless 1950's construction - my wife and I huddled in a doorway as Charley blitzed across the city, causing us to wince at every mysterious thump on the roof. The kids, bless their hearts, slept through the whole damn thing. We emerged the following morning to a scene that can only be described as apocalyptic. A third of an oak tree dumped into our pool. Fully half of Winter Park's prized canopy was gone. Entire blocks hemmed in by branches and limbs. We walked down the middle of previously busy streets, like survivors of war, stunned by the silence - that is, until the generators kicked up, a sound that lasted for another month.

I'll never forget the sight of one of my neighbors, a gentleman whom I had never met, strolling blithely down the sidewalk and informing me that a hundred-year-old oak had split his home in two. We chatted for a moment, and when he turned to leave, the back of his t-shirt was soaked with blood. The tree had cut him just below the back of his neck, and he was too deep in shock to notice.

In the days that followed, I piled debris higher and higher by the street, until the city finally freed up a crew to remove it the following month. I spent a stifling afternoon on my roof with a Sun Sports co-worker who had the only working chainsaw in Orlando, chopping an oak tree into pieces small enough to toss into the yard. My wife took our two children down to Sarasota for a few days to stay with her parents, because their golf course community had buried power lines, and therefore had power. It's not something I remember fondly, but now that I see what's happening in Louisiana, Mississippi, and other areas of the Gulf Coast, I realize that we had it easy. My house has been repaired. The fence is back up, and the streets are clear. New trees have been planted along every street. New Orleans is an eternity away from anything resembling normalcy.

Those of us who live in Florida are in a unique position as we watch the daily reports from the Gulf Coast. If you grew up here, as I did, you may recall that most grocery store chains once printed hurricane tracking charts on their paper bags. "Hurricane days" were the Florida equivalent of "snow days." Those of us who lived in Central Florida viewed hurricanes as a coastal problem - they never came this far inland, you see, and if they did, everybody knew they weakened over land. We grew up with these tenets, and they were absolute. Until Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan, and now, Katrina.

Watching the news this week has left my wife and I somewhat numb. For one thing, it's almost impossible to wrap our heads around the destruction. For another, we've all been dulled by the events in Florida from last summer. We feel like veteran boxers, punch-drunk. Tired. If you live in Florida, and at any time during the last five days said to yourself anything along the lines of, "better them than us," don't feel guilty. I said it too, stunning myself at my own callousness. It's a natural reaction to getting your ass kicked. It happened here, and now it's happening there. Only what's happening there is nine miles worse than our Summer of Storms.

There was a sports angle to this. The games will go on as scheduled throughout much of the country this weekend, but I ask that you stop for a moment between cheering for the alma mater and poring over your fantasy football roster and observe a moment of contemplation, or prayer, or whatever you choose to call it. If you're so inclined, the American Red Cross could use your help. If you check the Conference USA website (www.conferenceusa.com), they have provided a very helpful list of supplies that are desperately needed in the disaster zone, along with an even more helpful list of what NOT to send. Further, if you were on the fence as to shelling out the money for the Florida-Wyoming pay-per-view, consider where that money will go. If Tulane or Southern Miss is on your schedule this year, give them a little love. Magic and Heat fans, welcome the Hornets with open arms.

It's only a game, folks. The events of the last week have reminded us of that fact. So while you enjoy it, ask yourself what you can do. Kudos to Conference USA, the University of Florida, and everyone else who has already extended a hand.

Lord knows, they'll need it.