Living in Florida is living with hurricanes. You hear the hurricane warnings every now and then, prepare by stocking up the necessities to survive through the hurricane and then it does not affect you that much. Not this time. Hurricane Wilma hit us hard. On October 24, 2005, the howling wind of 115 miles per hour uprooted countless trees and electric poles, shattered windowpanes, blew rooftops of many houses. The radius of the storm was 60 miles and it devastated Dade, Broward and part of Palm Beach county. This included the City of Miami, Miami Beach and Ft Lauderdale, home of thousands of expatriate Bangladeshis. The picturesque landscape of South Florida was turned into a disaster movie set overnight. Nine million Floridians lost electricity. Most of the cookers are electric here and losing electricity means no cooking. In many areas water supply is disrupted and in other areas mandatory orders have been given to boil water before use. Most of the traffic lights are not working and police are deployed at the street intersections to manually control traffic. This disrupted the steady flow of vehicles. The gas stations cannot work without electricity and the only few functional ones are running with generators. Frustrated motorists are waiting in mile long lines to get petrol in front of the gas stations. The supermarkets can accept only cash as teller machines are not able to accept credit card without electricity. There are long lines in the bank to get cash.The supply of even bare necessities is limited and stores are running out of canned food, batteries, flashlights and bottled water. People are standing in long lines for ice and water at the government distribution sites. The city of Miami virtually came to a halt for this week. All the schools and universities suspended their classes. Most of the offices and commercial places are still not fully functional.
Florida Power and Light (FPL) is working relentlessly to have electricity back. Some 6,000 linemen from 23 states and from Canada are working round the clock to restore electricity. In many places it has already been restored, but FPL has warned that in some places people may have to wait until November 22 to have electricity back.
We, who became used to the comfort and security of the developed world, are take everything for granted and tend to forget that nothing is guaranteed in life, no matter where you live. This time we are learning this lesson the hard way.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.