Long
road trip.
I’m
in the car, two dogs in the back seat, adding miles on a journey
down the east coast of the United States. Sunrise arrived not
too long ago, and the northern Georgia state line is in our rearview
mirror as we head south across the Peach State.
Not
sure what to listen to for a bit, and looking to change things
up as I settle in for the remaining four-plus hours of driving,
I find a local NPR station. A few minutes later, the local weather
is updated during a break, and that’s where the fun begins.
I
didn’t know where I was.
Now,
yes, good catch. I did know where I was. In a car, with two dogs,
driving south on interstate 95. The exits and signs for Savannah
were behind me. And, you’ll fully agree if you know this run of
highway, I was navigating a one-hundred-twelve-mile stretch of
Georgia nothingness all the way to the Florida line.
However.
No
clue what cities and towns I was passing. No idea of the counties
involved. I could check out the roadside mile markers to provide
something of a location, but for some definitive placement like
a zip code or town name there wasn’t a chance I had the foggiest
notion of where I was. Which…
…made
it slightly uncomfortable when the person delivering the forecast
in the weather report began listing off counties facing severe
weather warnings and recommending seeking shelter.
I
had checked out the weather hours earlier before I set off on
this adventure. I knew there was rain and wind expected in Pennsylvania
and Georgia during my drive. But at that moment the rain wasn’t
falling and the winds weren’t blowing. All of the other cars were
continuing along, showing no reactions to any warnings or such.
Figuring
the alerts and alarms and more on my cell phone were active, and
none of them were making any noise, I continued on.
I
was less than fifteen miles from the border that separates Georgia
and Florida when the radio broadcast was interrupted by an emergency
alert. It was a warning to take shelter, with a strong storm approaching
that was expected to bring damaging wind gusts and the possibility
of significant hail. As part of delivering the news about these
storms moving on the southern Georgia border at 45-miles-per-hour
came, again, a listing of counties.
My
first reaction was similar to the one I had previously. No one
seemed to be adjusting or responding to the warning around me.
Mist was in the air, requiring occasionally flipping on the wipers,
but no steady rain. Wind didn’t seem too bad at all. And—while
I have no clue if any of the counties listed were in Florida and
the report supposedly came from a Jacksonville weather office—the
report had said moving along southern Georgia and there was barely
ten minutes to go before I wouldn’t be in Georgia. I’d be in Florida.
My
second reaction was a word problem forming in my head. Kind of
an eighth or ninth grade math thing, with me driving south at
70-miles-per-hour on route 95 and the storms moving east at 45-miles-per-hour
along the border. If I was twelve miles from the border, how long
would it take for… well… I quickly realized the difficulties facing
me. The county names and current locations of the storms and wind
gusts were unknowns, creating variables that I needed to know
if a solution was to be found.
Where
the heck was I?
In
the end, I did drive during some brutal outbursts in and around
Jacksonville soon after hearing the second round of alerts. There
were lots of signs of damage, mostly trees and wind-blown debris
along the road. But I was careful, took my time, and arrived safely
at my destination.
The
two dogs? They slept. They missed all of it.
What
I couldn’t shake, and still can’t quite get a full grasp of, was
the strange sense of place that I felt when I realized I both
knew and didn’t know where I was.
I’ve
got several navigation apps and a Garmin, providing lots of GPS
options. Most of them update travel conditions in real time. They
can tell me where cars are on the side of the road and give a
warning when police may be found up ahead. I have a cell phone
with bells and whistles and emergency alerts, which were triggered
during the national emergency system test thing a few weeks ago.
I
wasn’t operating a vehicle along a route where roads were closed
and multiple hurricanes were converging. Sure seemed as if there
was no reason to say I had several days’ worth of notice of what
was approaching, even if I did know rain was expected.
And
yet, none of that current and up-to-date technology was setting
off notices instructing anyone in the area where I was to hunker
down. Which was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Because I didn’t
know where I was.
There’s
an old saying, used in lots of circumstances, that provides for
the concept that you don’t know what you don’t know until you
know you don’t know it. Why is it that, often, those sudden realizations
provide me with head-scratching moments of confusion?
When
I’m planning a road trip I consider rush hour conditions. I think
about eating and fuel and rest stops. I talk to the folks that
might be in the car with me about beverages and snacks. Never
have I wondered about mapping out a list of counties for my travels.
But I guess that’s because I’ve never really wondered where I
was.
Swirling
around in my head, however, is the realization that all of it
matters and none of it matters. Knowing the Georgia counties won’t
help. If I study them and stick to the same driving route in Georgia,
I still won’t know the counties in North Carolina. Learning them
in Virginia is of no use if I decide to adjust the route in Pennsylvania
or South Carolina and go a different way.
Where
am I? I’m probably better off not knowing.