The night the lights came out in Georgia

My oldest daughter burst into the room where I was sleeping pointed at me and said, “you, get up now and get in the car. You are the one who has to see this.” She was right I did have to see it. It was something I was sure I would never see in this life. Thank you, Apple, for developing the technology that would provide the proof that it was not a dream.

A bit of back story is needed here. This photo was made at 10:34pm on Thursday October 10th, 2024 in Tifton, Ga. A most unlikely place to observe the Aurora borealis and there was a rather unlikely reason I found myself there.

Just a few days earlier, after reading that the National Hurricane Center advisory that Cat. 5 Hurricane Milton had 185mph sustained winds, we decided it would be a good idea to evacuate our home on Florida’s Suncoast. Milton, following Helene, would be our second major hurricane in as many weeks. Our oldest daughter and her husband decided to join us as well. Thankfully, we know some wonderful people, Joanna and Garrett, up here in Bulldog land, who invited us to stay with them for a few days. We are so thankful for their putting up with us, and our five dogs, during our stay. They were fabulous hosts. Still, we spent the whole time worrying about our other children and grandkids who stayed behind.

Two weeks earlier Tifton, Ga. had been heavily damaged by Hurricane Helene and there were huge pine trees down everywhere. The stores were just beginning to replace the items that had been in short supply, many still had no power. Helene did tremendous damage to the entire west coast of Florida before destroying parts of Georgia, South and North Carolina. No sooner had it died out than the computer forecasts would predict a major storm would develop in the Bay of Campeche from the remnants of a Pacific Ocean storm that crossed central America. That storm, Milton, would make a direct hit on the place I grew up, Siesta Key, Florida. I now live just a few miles north of there.

Although it had been trimmed earlier in the year, I knew the 50ft tall oak tree in our back yard would not survive a storm that strong. I also knew that based on the direction of Miltons’ approach the tree would fall in our master bedroom. Not the desired result.

As it turns out, Milton calmed down, to a category 3, with top sustained winds of only 120 mph. The eye of the storm did not pass over our home, but the northern eye wall did for a long period of time. Astoundingly, the tree and our home withstood over an hour of triple digit winds. Praise the Lord!!! We also got lucky and were only without power for 7 days this time. Which now allows me to tell this fantastic (?) story:-)

By the following morning all of our family let us know they had survived Milton and so did their homes. Some even had electricity after the storm had passed. They checked on our house as well and apart from fences and power lines down all was well. When we heard this, we decided to return home the next morning. As a result, my wife and I turned in early. Feeling a bit of relief, I fell asleep instantly.

My daughter stayed up to talk with our hosts, JoAnna was her church youth leader during her teenage years and as adults they have remained friends. About that time Garrett’s mom and dad called to say, much to their surprise, that they could see pink lights moving in the sky and sent a photo. They immediately jumped up from the table and Hilary came to get me.

Why me? Because, back in December, there were rumors that you might be able to see the Northern Lights in our part of Florida. We drove out to the middle of freaking nowhere, in the middle of the freaking night and watched for hours, only to find out, they lied. Similar stories had been in the news just before the storm, but we had not paid much attention for obvious reasons.

On the drive out to the in-law’s house, JoAnna said she could see pink in the sky and thought she was looking north. 10 minutes later we were there. If you looked north, and you tried really hard, you could see a faint pink glow in the sky. Sometimes stronger sometimes not so much.

During our attempt in Florida, we read that by setting an iPhone to night mode, and hold it really, really still, you could photograph the Aurora. I am sure you can do it with an Android too but who owns one anyway? JK.

So, switching to night mode, setting the shutter to 10 seconds, and pretending to be a rock I clicked the volume up button… waiting another few seconds for it to process, voila, freaking amazing. I shot another 30 images before the excitement wore off. Most were blurry, they were long exposures after all, but some were pretty darn sharp. A bit of playing in Photoshop and some were even good.

Here in the 21st century cameras are pretty amazing. Some so small they fit in your pocket, let you surf the internet, read books, and make phone calls. Mine makes images so good they could be printed to 11X14 inches satisfactorily.

The magic in this photo is that the shutter is not really open for 10 seconds. The iPhone makes billions, OK maybe not billions, but a crap ton of images during those 10 seconds. Then it automatically stacks them into layers and combines them. Effectively making a long exposure, but some with distinct advantages. Because of combining all those under exposed images they can be made sharp and none of them really appear to have moved during each exposure. The computer aligns them preventing the blur that any human would make trying to hold a traditional camera for a 10 second exposure. I did bring my real camera to Tifton but forgot to grab it in the rush. Also, no tripod. Thankfully, have iPhone will travel.

It was an experience I was thrilled to share with some of my kids and our friends. In particular since some of us had already invested hours in trying to see the phenomenon before. Still, during those moments I was also sad that someone was missing. This is the kind of thing that you are supposed to share with your spouse. She was the kind one who volunteered to watch our hosts children back at home as they had school in the morning. It may sound lame, but it is a sadness I will carry every time I come across this photograph. At the same time, I will be forever fascinated by how God engineered the circumstances that allowed us to see the Aurora as I am sure I never will again. Of course, God knows, and though I am amazed by these phenomena in His creation, my guess is I probably will not…