Walled off. Photo by Jordan Levin

Not knowing is the scariest part. We’re waiting for a disaster whose dimensions, whose limits you can’t see. How long will the coronavirus plague us? Weeks? Months? And the economic fallout? Will it change life forever? Anything seems possible.

Living in Miami for over 30 years, I’ve gotten used to preparing for one kind of disaster — hurricanes. The terrifying possibilities of these monster storms were something I knew. I’ve lived through Hurricane Andrew, Wilma, the edges of Katrina and Dorian, the vast looming threat of Irma, when I sat in a two–day traffic jam as all of Florida became an evacuation zone.

The damage can be enormous: after Andrew, I saw blocks of homes flattened, fields of snapped off palm trees, windows blasted out by wind, highway signs stripped down to the metal. But the destruction is finite, and so is the fear. However bad the storm gets, it will end after a day or so, and then we know what will happen and what to do. The power goes out. You eat peanut butter sandwiches and grill outside. You clean and repair. You gather with friends and neighbors, and people help each other out. After days or weeks, life goes back to normal.

Hurricanes are nothing compared to coronavirus. We don’t know what the virus will bring, or how long it will last. Worse, the longer it lasts, the worse I fear it will be. Dystopia suddenly feels terrifyingly possible. Will the economy plunge into not just recession…