It was a week that will be etched in the memory of the Southeast, dominated by the relentless aftermath of a storm they labeled a derecho – a land hurricane, as some called it. For many, including myself, it was simply chaos unleashed.
The storm descended without warning on a sweltering Friday evening. Calm skies abruptly surrendered to ominous black clouds swallowing the stars, and a gentle breeze morphed into a fierce gale. Trees were uprooted, shutters ripped away, and power lines snapped like twigs. It was a display of nature’s raw power unlike anything I had ever witnessed, and fervently hoped never to see again.
We were incredibly fortunate to emerge from the storm untouched. Our property remained unscathed – no fallen trees, no missing shingles. However, the story was starkly different for friends and family. Entire communities were plunged into darkness, grappling with power outages that stretched for days. This was far from ideal, especially as heat indexes soared to a suffocating 115 degrees. For many families, faring through this meant enduring sweltering homes and disrupted routines, highlighting the immediate challenges posed by such widespread outages.
The subsequent Monday morning commute was a testament to the storm’s disruptive force. While the roads were largely cleared of fallen trees, debris remained scattered, forcing drivers into a frustrating slalom between lanes.
However, the real bottlenecks were the traffic lights, particularly within the city. Intersections became snarled masses of vehicles, devoid of any police direction. In such moments, it felt like anarchy was poised to take hold. Even on a normal day, people are rushed, stressed, and intent on reaching their destinations. Combine this with the oppressive July heat, the absence of electricity, and the anxiety about the safety of homes and properties, and the stage was set for widespread frustration and anger.
Predictably, the first traffic light I encountered confirmed these anxieties. No police were in sight, and orange cones, coated in dust, lined the white lane markers. The traffic light itself was completely dead, not even flickering a warning yellow, indicating a total power failure, including emergency backups. The intersection was a T-junction, with four lanes of traffic converging from each direction.
Overwhelmed, I threw my hands up in a gesture of resignation. I braced myself for an endless wait, possibly until the end of times. If I was lucky.
So, I inched forward, stopped, started, windows down, the familiar strains of Jimmy Buffett on the radio serenading me with a longing for the islands.
But then, a curious phenomenon began to unfold. Traffic wasn’t truly gridlocked. Progress was slow, yes, but surprisingly smooth. A continuous, albeit gentle, forward motion, steady and effortless. This order wasn’t imposed by any authority figure directing traffic, but rather orchestrated by the collective, unspoken cooperation of fifty individuals.
Vehicles moving north to south cautiously navigated the intersection until someone – guided by an innate sense of fairness and spatial awareness – came to a stop. This single act prompted the drivers beside and behind to halt as well, creating a gap for the east-west traffic to filter through. Minutes later, the process reversed, as another driver’s internal compass of fairness tilted in the opposite direction. This organic, self-regulating system allowed families and individuals alike to navigate the disrupted city.
Ultimately, I arrived at work only slightly behind schedule. And the experience repeated itself an hour later, when the university administration, recognizing the impracticality of operating without power, sent everyone home.
They say the derecho was virtually impossible to predict until the last moment. It seemingly materialized out of nowhere. I suppose many storms are like that. You remain unaware until the wind hits you with full force, until things begin to break and crumble.
Reports from areas further north and east painted a grim picture. Beyond power outages, there were accounts of looting, robberies, and the societal breakdown often associated with such crises.
It was heartening to witness the antithesis in my own small corner of the world. To see people choose cooperation over self-interest, to observe drivers yielding to others at a defunct traffic light. It instilled a flicker of hope within me. It suggested that even when faced with adversity, even when things are undeniably bad, we, as a community and as families faring through the storm, have the capacity to choose a better path.
