In 2017 hurricanes affected so many people on coastlines as well as some people in the Laguna community. Seniors Mackenzie Kinsella and Kelly Bicket both have connections with people that were hit by the hurricanes. Kelly has a house in Florida and was hit by both hurricane Matthew and Irma. Hurricane Matthew flooded their whole first floor, and a tree fell on their garage, while their dock on the Saint Augustine River was destroyed. When Hurricane Irma came roaring through, it destroyed a lot of their trees and caused damage to their dock that they had rebuilt after Hurricane Matthew. Currently the carpet in their house is being redone, and they are rebuilding the dock that was damaged. Even though Kelly’s family prepared for the hurricanes by boarding up the windows and “removed a couple dock planks so the dock could be malleable with the aggressive water from the Hurricane” they still received some damage.

Mackenzie Kinsella’s aunt and uncle’s house on Marco Island in Florida was affected by Hurricane Irma. The eye of the hurricane went directly over their house and did a lot of damage to people’s houses, knocking down doors, tearing up roofs and flooding first floors. Because her aunt and uncle’s house went through Hurricane Andrew in 1992, it was rebuilt to weather storms better, so they had minimal damage to their house. Their roof had some missing tiles, vegetation was missing, and their dock had been torn up a little. Many people stayed on the island for the storm, and the next day people started cleaning up immediately. Mackenzie’s family house had lost power for about 6 days, while others didn’t have power for 1-2 weeks. Preparing for such a storm takes time, but metal shutters, storm windows and plywood helped save windows all over the island from getting broken, and packing up belongings on floors of houses and apartments became a huge task for homeowners. The forecast had predicted that there would be a 12-15 foot storm surge, which would most likely cover her aunt and uncle’s house, so they packed up a suitcase of irreplaceable valuables. Thankfully, the harder hit areas were not where her family’s home is located. The communities that were hit harder started a Facebook page to help raise money to help clean up, and Mackenzie’s aunt volunteered to hand out gas, water, food and other essentials to people that were struggling with damage. When her aunt volunteered to help the communities she said “it was amazing to see people helping people through the aftermath of Irma.” Despite how much horrible damage hurricanes can bring to communities, families, and friends, it is amazing to see how much positive effort can be put forth to help everyone clean up.