In Lealman, Florida, where Jessica Glenza grew up, Sunday was filled with foreboding – and the sense of scare didn’t let up until the rain did

My family and I survived Hurricane Irma. The fear was real – but we were lucky

When we woke up, the house was still standing. The cars were still parked in the grass. The baby was still crying. None of those things had been guaranteed.

Hurricane Irma delivered a “glancing blow” to Tampa Bay, in the words of Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn. Not all of Florida was so lucky.

The storm was a category 2 hurricane when it hit our little peninsula, Pinellas, a jut of land just west of Tampa. The area is frequently described as one of the world’s most vulnerable to flooding and disasters related to climate change.

Irma had threatened worse. At one point on Saturday, meteorologists believed the eye wall of a category 4 hurricane could hit us, a blow that would have turned our peninsula into an island anthill. Irma was the most powerful storm to hit our part of Florida since 1921, when a category 3 wrought destruction on an area that was then sparsely populated.

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“The unknown is the most scary thing,” said my mother, Virginia, a 60-year-old pre-K teacher. She appeared visibly relieved, if also amused that her daughter was interviewing her. She said the storm brought “so much anxiety and work, it’s just a big relief off my shoulders”.

We live in Lealman, a working-class neighborhood on high ground just north of St Petersburg city limits. If Irma had visited as a category 4 storm, Lealman would have been one of the only parts of Pinellas above water.

“We have dodged a bullet so many times here in St Pete,” my mother said. “I feel like there’s a whole weight off my shoulders from this being over.”

Before the storm, our area did not feel ready. Many people fled, but many others were forced to weather the storm in homes without boarded windows and in trailers. Some were undoubtedly in flood zones.

Sunday was filled with foreboding. Residents huddled in shelters and block houses – buildings that felt strong. Friends convinced their parents to flee from flood zones. Curfews were issued. I bolted boards on to my mother’s sunroom, through a downpour. And we waited.

On Sunday night, as the wind whipped and whirred, the forecast changed for the better. But the scare didn’t let up until the wind and rain did.

Michael, my father, is a 59-year-old disabled tow truck driver. Government assistance is barely enough to keep the lights on, let alone buy lumber for an encroaching storm. Had he the money to buy plywood, all the stores were sold out. To board up his windows, we used an old fence and a sheet metal towing sign that bore his company’s name.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest After the storm in Lealman. Photograph: Jessica Glenza

Where I sheltered, at my mother’s, there were seven people: my aunt and uncle, my sister and her two-week-old baby, her boyfriend, my mother, and me. The house is normally cluttered but the storm brought accoutrements of dread: stacks of bottled water, piles of paper towels and toilet paper, canned food, batteries and flashlights.

As the storm set in, sheets of rain spun off the roof of a nearby church, illuminated by a single street light that flickered in and out. The cable died. Then cell service. We never fully lost power, but not all were so lucky.

Most of the state is still without power and I’m writing this tale from my rental car, parked in a part of the city where I have cell service. Most of the traffic lights in town are out, which makes driving something like playing chicken in a rocket.

Make no mistake, the storm pummeled this state. Families in counties around us lost homes, belongings and lives. The Florida Keys was hit by Irma when she was a 4. It was severely flooded, lashed by the brunt of the storm. Workers stood by with body bags. One Monroe County official said conditions there amounted to a “humanitarian crisis”.

A tree perhaps 60ft tall, with a trunk the size of three men, fell in my father’s backyard, just missing his truck. Another tree of the same size loomed over his bedroom, a reminder of how lucky we are. My mother’s lemon tree was sliced in two through the trunk.

As in many such circumstances, the poor and the vulnerable suffered. A half-mile from my parents’ houses are several trailer parks. The one I visited sits next door to Oley’s, a squat convenience store that was once rumored to sell baloney, white bread and cheese by the slice, so its customers could afford it.

Play Video 1:48 Hurricane Irma's path of destruction - video report

Diana Hornton, a 54-year-old two-time cancer survivor and a former nurse, weathered the storm in her trailer. It was “nerve-racking”, she said. The storm was not as bad as expected, but it was still powerful enough to gut two units. On Monday, a cat perched comfortably in one.

“At least six units in this park are disabled vets,” Hornton said. “My husband’s disabled, I’m disabled, we’re both cancer patients. Right now, I’m worried about getting people out of their houses.”

Why weather the storm here? Hornton has five sons and an eight-month-old granddaughter. “We didn’t have the vehicle or the money to move them,” she said.

More than 6 million people now need to make their way home. As one one Punta Gorda evacuee told me at the height of terror: “People are driving all over the state to get away from it, and it just follows them.”

The preparation, the waiting, the watching, the praying. It all felt like someone threatening to drown your childhood memories in a bathtub.

I learned to surf and swim out to buoys in the Gulf; to wait tables in Tampa Bay’s restaurants; to love rock’n’roll from her venues; to smell bullshit from her con men; how to be tough and why one should seek justice.

I would have walked here from my last assignment if I had to.