JIM HENDRICKS: Thankfully, this time it wasn’t our turn

That was one sick feeling I had.

Watching the gigantic Irma churn its way across the Atlantic, through the Caribbean and toward Florida, I think a lot of us shared a sense of foreboding, maybe because of the massive destruction that Harvey just did to Texas.

I had a nauseating feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach, that it was our turn.

At some point in my career, I developed a philosophy that usually works pretty well for me. It goes something like this: Reason with your brain, care with your heart, but always go with your gut.

Irma was, as far as hurricanes go, a true monster, the most powerful one ever registered in the Atlantic high seas since the National Hurricane Center began tracking them. It was big — more than twice the distance from here to Atlanta — and conditions were perfect to keep fueling its energy.

Maybe my reaction and those of others were colored by the January storms, still fresh in our minds months later. The Jan. 22 one, by the way, is the first time where I’ve ever felt the need to get into the hallway of my home. I’ve always respected nature, never tried to push my luck, but it never really spooked me before.

Irma did.

Maybe it was the sense of helplessness. There is nothing you can do to stop a hurricane, or any other natural disaster, for that matter. It doesn’t come at you because it’s angry. It’s not going to listen to you as you try to reason with it or beg it off. It’s going to do what it’s going to do, driven not by wrath, but by natural forces.

My gut told me to get ready, which I did, as best I could. But outside of securing anything that you think might become a projectile — or, in the case of our patio table, a huge spinning glass Frisbee — collecting food that didn’t need to be cooked and bottled water, there wasn’t much to do.

Except wait.

Driving to work Monday morning, seeing stuff blowing around me, feeling the push against the SUV and looking at the dark, raining skies didn’t do anything to alleviate it. Neither did the feeling, as I walked from my car to the building, that someone was physically pushing me forward.

I did joke that I didn’t have to walk those last few steps, I just hydroplaned with a tailwind up to the door. And I managed to mention to Carlton that on his song verse intro for his next column he should use the Carpenters’ “Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.” He didn’t. So here it is.

The whole time, my gut told me to be ready for a catastrophe.

Thank God — and, by the way, I do — I was wrong, at least as far as our region goes.

Certainly there was extensive destruction, some of historic proportions, along Irma’s path. Lives and property were wrecked and, sadly, lives were lost.

I imagine there were many like me who hoped and prayed that this cup would pass, as it did for most of us in the Albany and Southwest Georgia area, even with the somber realization that this storm would do horrible destruction somewhere. For us to be spared, others would suffer, the other sharp edge of the blade of that particular sword.

Even in prayer, it seems, there are consequences that we just don’t want to think about.

There are some things I noticed after the skies cleared — as I’m writing this, outside my office window the sun is bright, clouds are fluffy and you’d never think that the rain and high winds were ever here — but that will all be for another time.

One thing I will say, though, is that the danger in being spared is the chance that the next event will be underestimated. This storm didn’t wipe us off the map, so why go to all the trouble next time?

The reason why you should always prepare for the worst-case scenario is it will happen. Maybe not this time, maybe not the next. But it will happen. Had Irma tracked slightly one way or the other, our results could have been much worse. The inconvenience of preparing pales in comparison to not being ready when a disaster does strike. A false security is the worst kind.

Right now, I’m simply thankful that we were spared the worst, and I’m hopeful that those who weren’t will get their lives back to normal as soon as possible. One thing about Americans is that when any of us are down, the rest of us tend to rise to the occasion.

My gut tells me that will be the case with Irma, as it was with Harvey, the January storms here, and disasters before those. This time, I think my gut got it right.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_JHendricks on Twitter.