Let me preface this article by saying that we are a little embarrassed the way they overdramatized our life. We really only experienced 1 tragedy, and that was losing Noah. The Hurricane put us on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, the oil spill was a road bump and we got through it much better than a lot of others. After seeing what happened in Japan with the earthquake and tsunami, I can hardly call some of what we have went through tragedies. They did do a nice job of writing the article and am grateful for the spotlight on the One Shoe Diaries. Here is the excerpt from the article about us written by Katie Hawkins-Gaar, April 20, 2011 7:58 a.m. EDT.
Surviving tragedy after tragedy
For many Gulf Coast residents, the Deepwater Horizon spill wasn’t their first environmental disaster. Randy Hamilton lived through the devastation of Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
The oil that began washing up on the shores of Pensacola, Florida, last year was yet another tragedy to endure.
The 41-year-old artist and his wife lost their house after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The sudden destruction spurred them to take off in a motor home and live on the road for four years. During that time, they started an art project called One Shoe Diaries showing photos of unmatched shoes they found along the way, and the stories behind them.
Things were improving and a baby was on the way. The Hamiltons moved back to Pensacola, and then suffered a heartbreaking setback: the stillborn loss of their son.
A year went by and Hamilton family began to settle back into a regular kind of life. The shoe project was a source of comfort. Baby daughter Nora was born and things started looking up.
But the Gulf oil disaster of 2010 brought yet another tragedy to the beach town. Hamilton can’t forget the “heartbreaking” day when the oil slick finally washed ashore, tarnishing the white sand.
Hamilton’s often whimsical, sometimes serious shoe photography project took a poignant turn when he captured an image of an oil-stained sandal that had washed up on the beach.
As the oil disaster saga continued through the summer, fewer and fewer tourists visited Pensacola. Hamilton’s photography business suffered. He witnessed a lack of productivity and morale among his neighbors and friends. More than anything else, though, Hamilton worried about the environmental effects on his daughter.
“I hated thinking that she may never know the beaches like we knew it. At that point, you didn’t know what would come,” he recalled. “We were worried that she wouldn’t be able to walk on those beaches.”
Some days, Hamilton said the smell of oil was so bad that his family would have to stay indoors to escape it. “It smelled like a mix of diesel fuel and lighter fluid — it made you nauseous.”
But despite it all, Hamilton stayed positive, waiting for the disaster to end.
BP plugged the rig 87 days after the explosion, on July 15, 2010. The smell dissipated slowly over the months following the disaster and close-knit Pensacola started to return to normal.
During a warm spell in late December, Hamilton and his family finally visited the beach. They haven’t gone into the ocean yet, but they’ve been taking little Nora to daily swim classes.
Today, Hamilton seems more optimistic than ever. Spring break recently brought many visitors to the beach, a good sign for the summer ahead.
And though Hamilton and his neighbors have faced a fair share of hardships, the proud father believes looking forward is the key to moving on.
“What keeps me going is what I do have — my wife and my daughter. You can’t think about what you’ve lost.”