This morning I woke up ready to get back on track. The month of October has been very hard for me. This month Hurricane Micheal hit my home town leaving my family in disaster. My mom, step-dad, and little brother lost their home along with my sister her three girls and husband. They lived in Callaway, Florida. Fifteen miles away off of 390 so many people we love and care about lost their homes and were left with many damages to their houses. My boyfriends parents lost some of their roof but they came out of the storm safely. We lost all communication with some of my family like my cousin Shannon and Aunt Sarah. They lived off of 390 around 5 miles down the road from my boyfriends family. My mom and sister evacuated and were safe and my brother and his family came to my house but they were able to return to their home once power came back on. My mom and sister are now staying in Alabama because they have no home to go back to.
The day of the storm we were receiving pictures from our families, which made us go into protection mode. My boyfriend and I were in the military together and we had trained for years together and also deployed to Afghanistan. We loaded up the car with supplies, a chain saw, and tools. When we got to Panama City we had to find a way in through back roads to get to our family. There was bridges down, trees and power-lines snapped in half, and pieces of houses strewn every-which way. When we made it to the first house we had to cut the trees to get through to the house and then we had to cut the cars from trees to get them out of the yard.
The second house was harder to get to. The trees in this area were pretty big plus the houses were closer together in this neighborhood making the power-lines fall over everything. Our friend had gotten a phone call from his mom during the storm and they were trying to get home after work. When the phone call dropped he had texted us saying he was worried. When we got there we saw the tree in the picture below had pulled up the driveway. Also their boat that was in the water behind their house had ended up in the bad yard. This was pretty crazy to see. Our friends family was safe and their house had some roof and water damages. When we offered our phone for them to make some called they were overwhelmed.
My cousin’s house was the next one on the list. When I couldn’t get in contact with my cousin my heart had dropped. It was 24 hours from the storm before I had any contact with her and that was when I pulled up on her street. She had looked at me in shock thinking that I couldn’t be real because there was no way in yet. I told her we would do anything for her. She was sitting in her house with the roof off talking to me trying to process her lost when she broke out in tears. She asked a number of questions going through her head and told us a horrifying story of what happened to them during the storm. She said it was the worst few years of her life and that she didn’t think they would make it through the second half of the storm: The doors were coming open, the attic was sucked out, the roof came off, the house was filling up with water, and the windows were being sucked out. Alyssa her daughter went to grab her cat and as she did her window, that was sucked out, tried to take her and the cat with it. They had to tie the front door closed and their safe room was filled with water. This was the scariest thing I have every heard.
Once we had checked on everyone we went back to work at getting cars out of the rubble with by chain sawing trees and moving them out of the way. That day was the longest for anyone who was hit by Hurricane Michael. We ended our day bring everyone to one house that had most of it’s roof and cooked hot dogs on the grill. When I slowed down I stared to realize how tired my body and mind were. We got a few hours of sleep and were up going at it early the next morning. We loaded up the kids and their pets then brought them to my house in Pensacola the next night.
Two weeks went by and I still am having a hard time getting back on track. I have hardly spent any time at the gym. I found myself feeling like I needed that time back to focus on my mind and body. When you spend days moving trees and walking around a disastrous town you find yourself forgetting about how you feel. The only thing that I could think about is what I could do to help.My cousins cat that tried to get away during the storm actually got away when we brought him to my house. Because my 17-year-old My cousin was so sad after losing her house and her pet we spend days looking for her pet while she went back to Panama City. One night I forgot to put food out and the next morning he practically knocked on the front door. That was when my emotions of the event started to come out. I thought I would feel sad sooner or later but instead I was overly happy that everyone including the animals were okay.
Thinking back on how everyone came together to help each other was the only thing keeping my spirits up. The picture at the top of this blog is the aftermath of the work that was done at the first house. That big tree was so big that professionals had to come out to remove it. Even though this was a sad disaster we came out of it a live. While we still have a few years of work to do I know that we will do it together as a family and as a city.
The other day when I went to my fitness class my teacher asked me how I was feeling Mentally, Physical, and Spiritually. The only word that popped into my head at the time was tired. After really thinking about myself mentally I am feeling a lot of things such as: proud of the work we did for others, happy my family is safe, inspired to keep helping panama city get back to normal or better than every, and encouraged to keep myself on track here in Pensacola at the same time. Physically my body is feeling better after the third week of non-stop work I am ready to get back to my step, kick-boxing, yoga, aqua cycle, normal cycle, and insane ab classes plus I am inspired to keep learning on how to become a group fitness instructor through UWF. Spiritually I was feeling helpless after the storm but after a few weeks I have seen that with the support from family, friends, class-mates, and teachers I am now feeling hopeful. I am also seeing that my family is feeling better.
This blog post is my Journey through a hard time. Before the hurricane I was on track with doing yoga every night and stretching every morning. I have truly been feeling better then I have in a long time since my injuries from the military. The first night I had leg spasms and when I made it home the next night I checked my weight and find that I had lost 3 pounds. I had my work out routine schedules as Mondays being my core days, Tuesdays aqua cycle days, Wednesdays were my express cycle and step days, Thursdays were my kick-boxing and ACE group fitness days, Fridays are my cool down days, Saturdays were my morning practicing how to teach group fitness, and Sundays were my rest days. I haven’t been on track with my schedule since the hurricane and this week I am getting back on track, while scheduling days in for cleaning-up Panama City and staying on point with my six classes. I can’t wait for this semester to be over.
Nikki Pikki's Fitness World 