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I know what it's like to be the victim of a hurricane. I lost everything but my sanity to Hurricane Floyd in 1999. No place of my own to lay my head, no clothes, no music, no anything except what I had on and what was in my pockets the day that I left my residence.
I wasn't able to return for about a month. When I saw the damage to my place, I was shocked. The waterline was up to the ceiling and mold was growing on the ceiling fan.
I'd never seen anything like this before — and I received very little help to get things back in order.
The devastation caused by strong winds and rain was enough to change my world.
After that I took hurricanes seriously. Before, I hadn't. To some people, hurricanes are an act of God.
To some people, hurricanes are just Mother Nature doing what she does best.
To others, hurricanes are a reminder of the slaves' struggles; hurricanes often form off the coast of Africa and travel the Middle Passage, the route slave ships used to take. Hurricanes are cyclones that have wind speeds that exceed 74 miles per hour.
They typically form in the Caribbean, where there are warm seas and strong, stable vertical winds. Hurricane Irene came to the United States right after many people on the East coast had their first earthquake scare.
Devastation from a natural disaster happens a lot these days. It's almost like the stuff you see in the movies when the world is about to come to an end: just one bad thing after another. She beat up on much of the East coast.
Fortunately she wasn't bad enough to do major damage here at N.C. Central University like the tornadoes did to the campuses of Shaw University and Saint Augustine earlier this year.
Although she missed our campus, the places many of our students' hometowns were affected by Hurricane Irene, so the storm was felt by many of NCCU students.
North Carolina alone had seven deaths due to the storm. At least 40 counties were placed under local states of emergency. More than 600,000 people were without electricity in North Carolina at one point during the storm.
Preparation is the best way to fight this kind of adversary.
People need to evacuate, get food and water, and most of all we need to get flood insurance because the loss or damage of personal property is very likely and real in this situation. Hurricane Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in North Carolina since 2008, almost six years after Hurricane Katrina.
We all know the aftermath of a major storm like this. We can all help the victims of Hurricane Irene because recovery can be a slow process.
People can donate to the American Red Cross and to food shelters from North Carolina to New England.
Contact the Red Cross at redcross.org, and type in your zip code to find your local Red Cross.
A useful list of North Carolina food banks is available here.
Let's help these people get their lives back together. We'll never forget about the storms, but we can't forget victims either.
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