Late afternoon on Wednesday, August 20, 1969, in a small trailer park in Virginia Beach, Virginia, I played in storm water that filled the street in front of my yard with my friends Johnny and Eric. We stomped and splashed until we were called home for supper. That is all I remember from the first week of school, the year I started first grade. That was also the day Hurricane Camille moved through Virginia, stopping in the early morning hours in Nelson County which lies nestled between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Ragged Mountains in the eastern edge of Appalachia, and is just over 200 miles from Virginia Beach. Camille left devastation in her wake, dropping 27 inches of rain in some areas of the county. Floods and landslides took the lives of 124 people in Nelson County. The storm also swept away over one hundred bridges, leaving only one highway intact as it passed through Virginia. The damages to property totaled $116 million ($968 million in 2025). Camille was the second most destructive tropical cyclone to hit the United States and one of only four Category 5 hurricanes to land in the U.S.

Three family members significantly impacted my life before I became an adult. Each one left devastation in their wake that still influences how I respond to the world. The damaged parts of my heart, soul, and sense of self that they left broken have been slow to heal. 

My father, Wayne, was in Japan when I was born. I first met him when I was eleven months old. I was very hesitant to warm up to this stranger. My mother insisted, “This is Daddy!” She told me that I shook my head vigorously, ran into the bedroom I shared with her at my paternal grandparents’ house, grabbed a framed photo from the nightstand, brought it to her, and said excitedly while holding it, “Daddy!”

My mother also told me he couldn’t tolerate baby talk and spent most of an afternoon lying on the couch with me on his chest to correct how I pronounced “socks and shoes.” He would say it correctly, and I would respond, “yocks and woos.” She says it continued until I finally gave in and said socks and shoes like a little adult. I don’t recall that patient determination from my father. He was rigid and insisted on complete obedience and perfection in everything. If mistakes were made, he would scowl and say, “Are you stupid?” Nothing less than straight A’s in school was acceptable. I was married with three nearly grown children before my father ever told me he loved me, without me first saying it to him.

My mother’s name is Peggy. My sisters and I have different names for her: “your sister’s mother” when two of us are talking, and “the tenant” because she lives rent-free with my middle sister and her husband. I usually refer to her as “Peggy.” Her refusal to defend us against our father’s violent outbursts and name-calling finally exhausted any chance of us willingly calling her “Mom” except when speaking directly to her. She always made excuses for his bad behavior, saying, “He never had love as a child.” It isn’t easy for me to see her in the same role I have with my children. I was a fierce protector, no matter the situation. When she found out that my paternal grandfather, Ivan, had abused me, she defended my abuser, telling me that no one would believe the word of a child over an adult. When I recall that moment, how utterly powerless and voiceless she made me feel, I remember how destructive she has been for most of my life.

In 1986, Typhoon Wayne formed in the northwestern Pacific Ocean on August 16. After three weeks of devastation, it dissipated on September 6. Thousands of fishing vessels were destroyed, tens of thousands of people were left homeless, and four hundred ninety lives were lost. The storm caused $399 million ($1.179 billion in 2025) in damage to property and land.

Just a month before Typhoon Wayne, on July 3, 1986, Super Typhoon Peggy became the eighth-strongest typhoon on record to hit the Philippines. It spawned tornadoes and caused flooding that led to landslides. There were more than 422 fatalities and $512 million ($1.509 billion in 2025) in damages. In the Philippines, it was particularly insidious, as landslides took the lives of forty-four people while they slept, and seventeen others drowned or were electrocuted while wading through floodwaters to reach higher ground. Peggy wreaked havoc across the Western Pacific region, causing flooding and tornadoes in Guam, the Philippines, and China before dissipating into a tropical storm on July 11, 1986. Though not officially retired, Wayne and Peggy have not been used to name storms since 1989.

In July 1973, our parents decided they needed a break from parenting and took my two little sisters and me for a month-long visit with our paternal grandparents. We arrived on August 1st, and I was excited to see them. We didn’t visit very often because they lived in Gulfport, Mississippi. When we pulled into the driveway, I didn’t recognize the place. The yard used to be full of towering pine trees, but all of them were gone. Our mom said one had fallen across the house during Hurricane Camille three years earlier, and our grandfather, Ivan, had cut down all the rest. 

My sisters slept in the bedroom with our grandmother Dorothy’s sewing machine – the room I had shared with my mother when she was pregnant and after I was born. This visit, I had my own room because I was “the oldest.” I was ten years old. My grandfather, Ivan, said I didn’t have to turn out the light immediately, so I didn’t. On the night table was a paperback book with characters from the Sunday comics. It was Lil’ Abner and Snuffy Smith comics. I was a voracious reader so I picked it up. It was not like any I had ever seen. At the time, I didn’t recognize it for what it was: pornography. I’m sure it was left there deliberately by my grandfather to spark questions and groom me for abuse. The abuse continued the whole month, from the day after our parents left to the day they pulled into the driveway to take us back home.

The moment I was far enough removed from my grandfather’s immediate presence to feel some safety, a rage began building inside me. I remember shaking with anger each time one of my parents didn’t allow me to speak, explain, or contribute to a conversation. I didn’t dare show the emotion roiling behind my carefully schooled expression. My father forbade any show of anger or angry looks, and any kind of “talking back” or standing up for myself was swiftly squashed with a look of pure hatred, a couple of words, or sometimes, a slap across the face. There were moments when the anger inside me was so powerful that I was afraid I would hurt someone if I let even a tiny bit of it show.

We moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina, the following spring. I had difficulty adjusting to my new elementary school, which was in a very rural area where generations of families farmed and were so tight knit that it took a long time for “outsiders” to be accepted into their circles. Eventually, I made friends with some of the kids on our street. I loved the weather there, which was highly changeable. One minute, the sun would beat down on the asphalt road, coaxing tar bubbles to climb out of the ground and dot the concrete curbs reminding me of the creosote bubbles on the carport posts at my maternal grandparents’ Spartanburg, South Carolina trailer. Next, the sky to the northeast would darken and sparkle with heat lightning. Often, storms would start far away, and my friends and I would watch sheets of rain coming toward us. We would wait until the rain got close enough for the aroma of steam rising from the cooling road to reach us, then we would try to outrun the approaching storm. We loved it when it caught us, even though we knew our mothers would scold us for getting soaked and trailing water through the house every time it did.

I saw my paternal grandfather, Ivan, only once after the summer I was ten. Our family stopped in Mississippi the summer before my junior year in high school, as we drove through on the way to California before moving to Okinawa, Japan. My father, Wayne, was a Marine, and we were moving so that he could take the position of Sergeant Major of the 3rd Force Service Support Group based at Camp Kinser near the capital city of Naha. Our parents knew it would be years before we saw family, as we would be 10,000 miles away, so they planned to visit as many as we could. Those two days in Mississippi were excruciating, as I struggled to act like nothing had happened while avoiding being alone with him. My parents knew what happened in the summer of 1973. They found out mere weeks after we returned home. Loving parents would never have forced me to see my abuser again.

Okinawa is a semi-tropical island that is the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. It was once an independent kingdom but was invaded by Japan in 1609 and annexed by Japan in 1879. The Battle of Okinawa was one of the last major battles of World War II and the bloodiest of the war in the Pacific. It lasted eighty-two days and cost nearly ninety thousand lives, including Okinawan civilians. There have been American military bases and outposts on the island since the end of the war. Despite its history of being used by Japan and the United States as a political chess piece, the people of Okinawa are resilient, noble, and kind. This place enchanted me. I could freely roam the towns outside the base I lived on and, once I learned to use the Oki bus system, explore the towns further from our house. I loved to visit the mama-san and papa-san stores in Futenma, the city right out of the gate to our housing area. They were unique little shops that sold all kinds of novelties and sweets. In one, I found a pretty miniature ceramic tea set. It was complete with a lidded teapot, a sugar bowl, a milk pitcher, and five cups with saucers. The tallest piece was 2 inches tall. I gave it pride of place on my desk. That tea set became central to expressing the rage I kept barely contained.

Okinawa is in the middle of Typhoon Alley. Because of its location, storms nearly always affect the island, even if they don’t directly hit it. October 19, 1979, was one of those near misses. Typhoon Tip originated near Guam, about 1,400 miles southwest of Okinawa. My friend Bob came to get me as the typhoon closed in on Okinawa. It was our favorite thing to do during storms. Sometimes other friends joined us, but it was just Bob and me this time.

Our houses were on the top of Tenth Army Hill with a gorgeous view of the East China Sea. We walked around our neighborhood, talking and laughing while the wind whipped around us. When we had walked the furthest distance from my house that we could without leaving the base, we circled back to my house, shouting to be heard over the roar of the storm. A waterspout rose close to the seawall as we stood far above on the sidewalk outside my house, facing the sea. It was beautiful. We watched it dance and spin, gracefully bending over and straightening. All the while, we were blown by outer bands of wind and stung by raindrops. I never felt more energized than I did in that moment, feeling that I was part of the storm. 

Okinawa was a paradise of independence for me if I was away from home. At home, I still had to deal with never being able to voice an opinion opposing one my father held. I couldn’t tell him when he made mistakes in assuming things about me or my life outside the house. Each encounter would stir up the rage that constantly seethed beneath the surface. Because I had to suppress it, but still felt every moment of it, my body would react by my eyes filling with tears. He would berate me more when he saw the tears and send me to my room. The walk from the living room to my bedroom was exactly 12 steps. I would softly close my door… walk over to my desk… choose a piece of the tea set… turn away from the desk… slowly raise my arm above my head… and throw the delicate chosen item on the tile floor where it would smash into minuscule pieces.

Then I would very deliberately clean up the mess I had made.

Two decades ago, one of the nation’s most lethal and damaging tropical systems struck the U.S. Gulf Coast. It carried the same name as my once-beloved grandfather, who altered my trajectory when he ripped away my innocence. 

In the early hours of September 16, 2004, Hurricane Ivan made its initial landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama, with sustained winds surpassing 120 mph. The Category 3 storm wreaked havoc along the coastlines of Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle, generating waves over 50 feet high offshore. Ivan became a Category 5 storm right before it hit the southern United States again. After making landfall along the Alabama coast, it turned and gradually moved across the southeast. This resulted in over 100 tornadoes and heavy rainfall in the region. As it moved off, it lost strength.

Even after losing its tropical storm characteristics, the storm was still not over.

The remnants of Ivan moved southwest and west, looping across Florida and returning to the Gulf of Mexico on September 21. Ivan regained strength over the warm Gulf waters, reaching tropical storm intensity again. The tornadoes, storm surges, floods, mudslides, and winds generated by Ivan inflicted extensive damage across 17 states from the Gulf states, through the Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky, the Virginias and Ohio, up the eastern seaboard to Delaware. Buncombe County alone reported damages nearing $200 million ($320 million in 2025) in western North Carolina. By the time it fully dissipated nearly a week later, Hurricane Ivan had claimed the lives of 57 people and caused over $27 billion ($43 billion in 2025) in damages in the United States. An additional 67 fatalities in Grenada, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the Cayman Islands, and Barbados were also attributed to Hurricane Ivan.

As of today, Ivan is still one of the ten most costly tropical cyclones that have hit the United States since 1980. Because of the lives lost and the widespread destruction caused by this storm, the World Meteorological Organization retired the name “Ivan” in the spring of 2005.

Tropical cyclones are dangerous natural hazards that occur worldwide. Naming tropical cyclones has proven to be the quickest way to communicate warnings and enhance public awareness and preparedness. Naming tropical cyclones also assists in maintaining historical records and researching storm behavior and impacts.

My father chose my name. My maternal grandfather, Rastus, decided I was too small a baby to fit a name as big as Patricia. After arguing over which way to shrink my name so I could fit into it, Patsy or Patty, my mother won, and for many years, I was called Patty. Peggy never failed to put me in my place by bringing up the story and sneering as she said, “You just weren’t big enough for your name.”

But I was indeed big enough. I was big enough to harness the decades of rage that burned inside me and wreak havoc all around. My gift with words became weaponized. The people closest to me became undeserving victims. When my son was a few months old, I began therapy when I realized my past of abuse was presenting in my current life as misdirected anger toward those most precious to me. I didn’t even understand why I felt angry sometimes. Living much of my life as a single parent to three small children while their father was away for work only compounded the stress of buried pain. Although I became more aware of why I was suddenly furious, I couldn’t always stifle those feelings. My children and spouse became fearful of my moods.

Patricia’s development into a tropical cyclone was slow and intricate, involving the interaction of several weather systems. A tropical disturbance crossed the southern part of Central America on October 11, 2015, and entered the eastern Pacific the next day, several hundred nautical miles south of El Salvador. 

Patricia was a late-season major hurricane that intensified at a rate rarely observed in a tropical cyclone. Over unusually warm waters south of Mexico, it became a Category 5 hurricane and the strongest hurricane on record in the eastern North Pacific and North Atlantic basins. 

Hurricane Patricia was an intense Category 5 hurricane that became the strongest storm ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, the second strongest worldwide in pressure, and the strongest in one-minute sustained winds. Because of the hurricane’s extreme intensity, and the destruction it caused in Mexico, the World Meteorological Organization retired the name Patricia in April 2016. 

May 22, 2003, was a significant milestone for me. It was my birthday, and the day that I decided it was time to retire, Patty, the nickname I hated so much. I had always used Patricia in professional settings. It took everyone around me time to realize I was serious. But eventually, everyone except my late husband’s family and some of my extended family stopped using that name. It was a big step toward claiming my voice and identity. 

There is still a dark place inside me that I try to keep under control. There is always a slight tremor of suppressed rage when I feel I am being silenced. I often use yogic breathing techniques to still myself so that I don’t inflict damage on those around me. I tend to go silent in disagreements as an act of self-care rather than succumb to anger.

I have a full-sized Okinawan tea set. I cherish it and occasionally drink tea out of it. When I do, I remember the control my younger self exerted to survive. She did the best she could in the circumstances she was given. I mourn the childhood that was stolen from her. It is her resilience that made me the woman I am today. 

Postscript: There is beauty in containing the storm inside and taming the rage. Facing demons left over from abuse helps channel them into power.

They whispered to her, “You cannot withstand the storm.” 

She whispered back, “I am the storm.”