Andy’s dramatic post-hurricane story describes the gratification gained from helping in a time of crisis:
In the fall of 2004, the beginning of my senior year of high school, hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne pounded the state of Florida. My hometown is centrally located between the east and west coasts, sheltered by miles of land from tidal surges and the fiercest winds of the storms. However, that is not to say that we went unaffected. The days before and after the brunt of the storms were still plagued with incessant rain. One or possibly two storms in a season would have caused no serious problem; that would have been normal. But four? The infrastructure of the city was not designed to withstand so much rain and wind in such a short time. By the time the third storm approached, parking lots and streets were under water. Neighborhoods around town were flooded, cars were submerged, and trees were uprooting from the completely saturated soil.
My father and I decided to drive through the neighborhood just down the road from our house and see what damage the storm had done to our area. As we drove along the streets there was not too much to see. There were some downed trees in yards, leaves and small branches everywhere, and flooded ditches. As we neared the back of the neighborhood I noticed a group of two or three men working with buckets, brooms, and a small pump on generator power to move the runoff water that was approaching a house. In an instant my father and I recognized one of the men and stopped immediately. The man so desperately trying to save his house from flooding was my dentist, Dr. Dutter. He has been my dentist as long as I can remember. I rode the same bus as two of his daughters in elementary school. We got out and Dr. Dutter came to greet us in the midst of his frantic effort to save his house (uninsured from floods) from the rising water. The problem was that they were unable to move the water fast enough and far enough away to make any progress.
Read the rest of Andy’s story in the extended entry.
Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.
I immediately headed back to my house where I grabbed a bucket and some old pool vacuum hose that we could attach to the pump and move the water across the street and into a ditch that drained into the woods. Even with all our efforts, the water still crept toward the low-lying house. One of Dr. Dutter’s friends called the industrial equipment rental places around town in search of a stronger pump. To give an idea of what were working with at the time, it would have been just as effective to siphon the water with a garden hose. Only one place on the other side of town had a pump, a brand new one at that, but it came with a catch. They had received a new pump without a new hose to fit it. Not only that, but Dr. Dutter had no car as his family members had grabbed their valuables and fled to his in-laws’ house. If that weren’t enough, the rental store closed in less than an hour, and the house was sure to flood with nobody there to bail away the water.
I volunteered to drive Dr. Dutter across town in my truck in what seemed like a desperate attempt to save his house from flooding. We were fortunate enough to make it before the store closed. We went to pick up the pump in hopes that we would come across some hosing that fit it, or maybe someone would turn some back in by the time we got there. Unfortunately, there was no hosing at the rental center. The trip appeared to be in vain. Fortunately, a contractor who happened to be a regular customer came in and the store manager told him our situation. I still think it was a divine act of God that the customer had a spare hose that fit the pump. He headed back to his shop and within half an hour we had a pump and free hose. A total stranger’s willingness to help made me proud of my community and how the people there come together in times of hardship and celebration alike.
We hurried back to Dr. Dutter’s house, our spirits lifted, to set up the industrial sump pump. I spent the rest of the day wading into dirty water, setting up the pump, and bailing water with a five-gallon bucket to save the house of a man I see once every six months. As darkness fell, my dad (unable to help much himself because of a bad back) returned to see how things were going. Dr. Dutter began praising me and thanking us for our help, telling my dad how much help I had been and how impressed he was with me. It was embarrassing to hear him say all that in front of me. I could only think that I had done what anyone would have in the same situation, and I still think that. I was just happy to help him and be a good neighbor. His house was safe from flooding, at least until the next hurricane season, and I felt a great sense of pride and accomplishment to have been a part that. Not too much later a thank you note came to me in the mail with a gift certificate to a sporting-goods store. The note was nice, and I was glad to hear he decided to buy flood insurance for next year, but I was almost ashamed to take the gift card. My decision to help him was not based on the assumption of compensation. I did it only because I knew he needed my help and it was the right thing to do. Of course, I dared not insult him by refusing the gift. I managed to put it to good use. When I think about that day, I always remember how grateful he was for my help, and how surprised he seemed to be that a teenager would spend his day off from school to help him bail water and chase down a sump pump and a hose. That memory of helping someone who needed and appreciated it so much is a reward that will last my entire life and remind me forever how fulfilling it is to come together and accomplish something meaningful.
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