Here is a poem about one of Florida's storied supranatural ladies:
Donna, by W.R. "Plumb Bob" Wilson: Donna was a husky lass,/A lusty dame was she,/She kicked her heels and swirled her skirts,/And shrieked in fiendish glee./She ripped at our buildings,/Uprooted trees galore./She took the Gulf of Mexico,/And flung it on the shore./She blew her breath from North and East,/And then gave us the eye./And when she found we still were here,/She made another try./From South and West she did her best,/A thorough job to make./She passed with great reluctance,/Leaving havoc in her wake.
Long-time Floridians immediately recognize the "husky lass" in this poem and recall her frightening three-day life span. She is Hurricane Donna who, from Sept. 9-11, 1960, sent tens of thousands of Florida residents running for safety.
Donna was the first hurricane that I vividly remember from beginning to end. On Aug. 29, 1960, torrential rains and powerful winds hit Dakar, Senegal. Some forecasters knew from the start that this was not a typical thunderstorm. After all, it already had been blamed for the crash of a commercial plane and the death of 63 passengers. Reporters referred to it as a "killer storm" as it roared through the West Indies and over the Caribbean Sea.
When the storm, now known as Hurricane Donna, hit the Florida Keys, a sense of doom came over the adults around me. My terrified mother did what she knew best: She, along with her six children, including me, hopped on a Greyhound bus and headed north to my grandparents' home in Lake County.
We left Fort Lauderdale with a bag of assorted sandwiches and the clothes on our backs. At 14, I was the oldest, and I had to help my mother keep the younger ones in line in a confined space with others, black and white, fleeing Donna. The nearly two dozen children played, and the adults forced grim smiles.
After all these years, I remember our bus driver, a tall, skinny white man who looked in the rearview mirror too often. His eyes seemed to single me out. I will never forget when he called me to him and asked me my age. Apparently satisfied, he told me to keep the "colored boys and gals" quiet. I did the best I could, but the kids were on an adventure and had no idea that potential catastrophe was only several hundred miles away and was pushing toward us.
I could not keep the "colored" and white kids apart. They played with one another as if they had been lifelong friends. Our first major stop was West Palm Beach. No passengers got off, but several more got on. The driver went inside the station. Returning, he announced that Hurricane Donna had come ashore south of Naples on the other coast and was turning east. It had left great destruction in its path.
We left West Palm Beach and were in Orlando in what seemed like record time. There, an uncle picked us up at the station and drove us to Mascotte. Once at my grandparents' home, we felt safe. The grand meal we ate that night made everything right with the world once again. At least that was what we thought.
By noon the next day, the sky had turned black, breezes picked up and the hefty branches of the live oaks were swaying. My grandfather, the epitome of calm, came in from the fields and told my siblings and me to go inside because a "bad storm by the name of Donna" was heading our way.
I thought we had left Donna behind. We had abandoned all our belongings for the safety of one of the highest points in Florida. This turn of events seemed unfair to me, and I felt cheated. Angry, I followed my grandfather and the rest of the family inside the old Cracker house. We gathered in the dinning room, where lunch was waiting on the table. As we ate, winds howled, and all light left the sky. We lit kerosene lamps and went into the living room.
As I heard roof tin bang and flap in the wind and as torrents of water pelted the tongue-and-groove frame of the house, I wanted to go outside. As everyone huddled and listened quietly, I sneaked onto the unscreened dogtrot, where wind and rain lashed at the stout support poles. I wrapped my arms around a pole, feeling Donna's full force against my face. The experience was exhilarating.
Two days later, my grandfather brought home the Orlando Sentinel. I was shocked at the photographs of the destruction elsewhere in the state. Entire trailer parks were demolished, waterfront houses were obliterated, cars were overturned and a semi tractor trailer had been tossed off a bridge. Grieving people embraced one another.
Donna is long gone, but the 2004 hurricane season has arrived, ending Nov. 30. Experts say we should prepare for an active season and should expect at least three intense Atlantic storms.
