DAVIS ISLANDS - Pictures. Clothes. Jewelry. The dog's bed.
With news reports of hurricanes and evacuations blaring over her television set Thursday morning, Kathy Stephens wasted no time sorting through the contents of her four-bedroom Davis Islands home.
Stephens, her husband, Ken, teenage son Tyler, and the family dog, Callie, already knew where they would go. Her in-laws live in Temple Terrace. But what to take and what to leave behind?
Stephens, 47, started with the pictures. She stacked white cardboard boxes filled with years of captured memories near her front door. Then the wedding album and the scrapbooks. She hadn't looked through them in years.
The pictures displayed in carefully chosen frames and scattered throughout the house were irreplaceable, so she added them to the pile.
Her memory stirred when she saw the very first family photo ever taken: mom and dad smiling with their newborn in the hospital.
"Here were are, 16 years later," Stephens thought to herself. "Dear God."
She paused at the framed black and white picture of Tyler sitting with Callie, the yellow Labrador. They're in a garden area at the University of Tampa. Tyler is looking down at Callie, smiling.
"I just love that picture," she thought to herself. "I love the look on Tyler's face. I love the dog."
She carefully stacked it on top.
Outside, Ken Stephens, 47, and his dad, Ken Sr., nailed plywood over the front windows of the single story house, which sits a short walk from Hillsborough Bay. A warm wind whipped against their backs.
Callie, now 10 years old, moved slowly about, wagging her tail. The television set made a zapping noise, and static appeared for a brief moment. The television anchors returned, analyzing colorful graphics.
"We lived in California," Kathy Stephens said. "We had earthquakes. At least with this, you can prepare."
Stephens collected a diamond ring given to her by her parents. The opal ring that was a gift from her mom. She gathered everything - necklaces, bracelets, earrings.
"It's all coming with me," she said. "Whether it means anything or not, it's going."
The insurance papers, tucked into a neat folder, went into the pile, too. So did her husband's medication.
Clothes whirred in the washer.
"I'm doing all my laundry," she said. "You have to have clean clothes to wear."
She would move on to Tyler's clothes, knowing the only thing her teenage son would pack when he got home from school were his two beloved guitars.
Before leaving, they would remove all the loose items around the pool, such as patio furniture and plants. Oh, and they would bring along Callie's bed, too.
"I'm not afraid of what I may find when I return," she said. "What are you going to do? To worry about it is not going to be useful. Many items are replaceable. The family and the pooch are together. That's what's important."
National Hurricane Center
