Hilton Head Island, one of the most hidden, yet insanely beautiful vacation destinations. As we ventured nearly one thousand miles, coming across many different landmarks and changing seasons, this was where I found my safe haven. However, exactly a month ago before we arrived, came one of the biggest destructors to this alluring island- Hurricane Matthew. As my family and myself encountered many islanders who stayed on the island although everyone was asked to evacuate, we found out that it was truly a “not-so-luck” of the draw as to who lost their entire lives on this island to those who merely had a few sticks laying on their back porch. Roughly eighty-percent of homes on the island were gone undamaged, but the other twenty-percent that were either minor damaged or completely destructed were what made this island unite as one.

Seeing the destruction of this superstorm of a hurricane left me speechless. The beautiful island I grew to fall in love with a few years back was soon ripped and teared all over the place. In this disaster there was a strange wonder to it. How could one home be untouched by the storm but their neighbors ripped to shreds as several trees fell on top of it. Hilton Head is home to many golfers, where there are tons of courses around. The development we stayed in was hit the worst out of the entire island along with my aunts home in another development- my family has a lot of luck if you can't tell. Driving through the windy roads to get to our condo was a jaw dropping sight. Trees pulled up from the roots fallen over onto the greens and the ground basically ripped up from the underneath. The places we stayed in was untouched although the scene only 15 feet away from us was unbelievable. Tennis courts and tall fences all ripped to the ground with piles and piles of lumber which was cleaned up throughout the month after the storm took place. This was not the view of my most favorite getaway that I remembered from years back but it still had that relaxing and intelligent vibe to it. I spent a lot of my time walking down the beach where I came across anything from sand dollars to dolphins. The water had seemed to look merkey and had many sticks still lingering around all over the beach from cleaning up the destructions, but this didn't make the scene any less alluring. Nothing could ever make this island lose it’s beauty in my eyes.

Now I know you're all probably thinking, “how could this girl ever find something so horrific and disastrous as beautiful?” Well, when you look past all the cleanup and fixing homes so that people can go back to living a normal life, you see a community come together as one. Just as our community comes together as one in hard times, whether it be severe storms, deaths, or awareness- a strong community can make even the worst of days feel like the brightest of days.