Growing up as a native Floridian, we are trained from the time we are very young how to deal with inclement weather. Hear thunder? You better be inside in the next five minutes before the storm rolls in. See a tornado warning? It’s time to grab the flashlight and radio, and get into the hallway ASAP. See a hurricane warning? It’s time to board up the windows with the shutters, pack your most precious possessions and drive for the next couple hours to seek shelter in the mainland. These are things that most Floridians do just as a reaction, without thinking. We struggled as a community after losing our homes to Frances and Jean in 2004, but finally restored our community and we're now thriving better than ever.
BUT..
Here came Matthew. This monster of a category 4 hurricane coming for Haiti, the Bahamas, and the east coast of the United States. Now October 2016, it had been close to a decade since the last major storm hit Florida. I was expecting my generation -- now adults for the first time -- to react to this hurricane and do what we had been taught all of our lives, especially after seeing most of our homes get destroyed in the 2004 hurricanes.
However, I was shocked to see a lot of my generation doing just the opposite. Glorifying the storm, and making jokes, even as a category 4 hurricane approached their homes.
Instead of evacuating for this massive hurricane that is barely worse than Frances and Jean, both of which destroyed so many homes in Florida in 2007, people sought to just stay in their homes and actually get outside their homes and record funny videos for Snapchat making fun of Hurricane Matthew.
How does this make sense? How does it make sense to not evacuate to a safer location even if that safe location is your hallway in your house? How does it make sense to instead go OUTSIDE and risk your life just to get a good picture or video for your Snapchat following -- even after seeing the devastation that Hurricane Matthew has had on Haiti.
Over 800+ lives have been lost from the storm, and for a majority of my generation, all they care about it making a funny tweet or status that will get the most likes and shares.
While I get that our generation copes by making light of things and laughing, if it had been 800 lives lost in the United States, nobody would be laughing and anyone that made fun of the event causing the tragedies would be scorned by society.
It’s time for my generation to look outside of their neighbors and truly look at what’s going on in the world. While we can joke to get through our difficult times, we should remain sensitive to the hurt the world is experiencing from the hurricane that could have just as well had the same effect on Americans, had it not shifted 10 miles to the right.
I challenge my generation to channel some of their energy that has been spent making jokes into helping to promote by sharing on their pages different causes that people can donate to, or send things to, to help rebuild Haiti.
We are blessed as a nation to escape the magnitude of the storm, but thousands of others in the Bahamas and Haiti were not as lucky.
