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St. Katherine's invites you to its New Year's Eve 2025 Party on Tuesday 12/31/24 at the Meletis Churuhas Center at St. Katherine's in Falls Church, VA featuring live music by Palko Greek Music Band and DJ Boston! Reserved table seating tickets now on sale exclusively at DCGreeks.com! Click here for details!
Over 1100 Photos from DCGreeks.com's Pan-Hellenism Weekend 2024 Friday Greek Night and Saturday Late Night Party are now online!  Click here for details!
The deTournai Christmas Show is coming to Pearl Street Warehouse in Washington, DC on Sunday, 12/15/2024. Tickets now on sale at ticketweb.com! Click here for details!
AHEPA Chapter #31 & The School of Byzantine Music are proud to present A Byzantine Christmas, Byzantine Hymns and Christmas Carols from all over the Greek World on Saturday, 12/14/24 at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC! Reserved pew seating tickets now on sale exclusively at DCGreeks.com! Click here for details!
What's New @ DCGreeks.com
12/08Tickets are now on sale for a New Year's Eve 2025 Glendi at Estiatorio Plaka on Tuesday, 12/31/24, in Baltimore, MD!
12/07Tickets are now on sale for The Cretan Association of Washington, D.C.'s Cretan Night on Saturday, 1/11/25, in Bethesda, MD!
12/05New Event: Third Thursday Greek Young Professionals Happy Hour -- Special Christmas Toy Drive & Stuffed Animal Making Edition on 12/19/24 at Clubhouse in Washington, DC
11/27New Event: deTournai Christmas Show at Pearl Street Warehouse on Sunday, 12/15/2024, at The Wharf in Washington, DC!
11/17DCGreeks.com's Pan-Hellenism Weekend 2024 Saturday Late Night Party Photos (11/2/2024)
11/17DCGreeks.com's Pan-Hellenism Weekend 2024 Friday Greek Night Photos (11/1/2024)
11/10Tickets are now on sale for St. Katherine's New Year's Eve Party on Tuesday, 12/31/24, in Falls Church, VA!
11/09Tickets are now on sale for Sidarta Live in Baltimore on Saturday, 12/28/24, at Jimmy's Famous Seafood in Baltimore, MD!
11/07Tickets are now on sale for A Byzantine Christmas Concert on Saturday, 12/14/24, in Washington, DC!
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Apollonia Productions presents diamond certified Greek Hip-Hop Artist SIDARTA live at Jimmy's Famous Seafood on Saturday, 12/28/2024, in Baltimore, MD. General admission tickets are on sale exclusively at DCGreeks.com! Click here for details!

September 29, 2003

Hurricane Disrupts Greek Life in DC

Hurricane Isabel wreaked havoc in the DC area, causing power outages, flooding, property damage and days missed off of work and school. As bad as we had it here, it wasn't as bad as the TV coverage back in Greece made it out to be. Over the past couple of years with record snowfalls, hurricanes, and other weather phenomena hitting the DC area, many of our relatives back in Greece have gotten the sense that we're in danger of being washed away, blown away, or buried at any given moment. 

When you're 5000 miles away from your relatives, it's hard to tell them not to worry, when they don't quite understand US Geography and Greek TV reports the worse of the worst. Our thea must have called six times based on pictures she saw of the North Carolina coast and of Virginia Beach. The DC area was nowhere near as bad as these places. 

Television and the Internet has changed how we deal with our relatives back in Greece. Back in the day, the easiest course of action was avoiding worrying your relatives was to not tell them things, or to flat out lie. Growing up there were broken bones, fender benders, and all sorts of bad news that our relatives back in Greece had no idea about. The theory was that at 5,000 miles away, since they couldn't do anything about it anyway, it was better not to tell them. 

Closer to home it was nice to see how the hurricane was bringing families closer together. And by closer together, we mean everyone flocking to stay at the place of the one family member who had power. We heard more than a few stories of friends of ours whose parents were barging over to their houses to put all their frozen meat in their freezers. It's bad enough when you have the contents of one Greek freezer in a house, but two or three freezers worth of food is plenty. 

The hurricane obviously affected Greek events around the DC area. Third Thursday was cancelled for the first time in its two year history. It was particularly sad for those who live and work in Virginia because it would have only been the third time that the event was held outside of DC or Maryland. Greek Night on Saturday night was a mixed bag, as some ventured out because they had been stir crazy sitting at home for a couple of days, while others didn't want to get on the roads and deal with traffic signals being out. On the Sunday after the hurricane, St. Sophia's still didn't have power, so an "unplugged" service was the order of the day. On that same weekend, Sts. Constantine & Helen had to cancel their festival. Sts. Constantine & Helen has had the worst luck with festivals the last few years. Two years ago they needed to reschedule the festival to the same weekend as St. Katherine's on account of September 11th. It was great to see them get great weather this past weekend, and good turnouts all three days. It was a good thing that St. Sophia's had already moved their festival off of this weekend to later in October, so there weren't two festivals in DC on the same weekend. 

Now, nearly two weeks later, things are back to normal, most of us have cleaned up and caught up, and people both here and back in Greece can get back to focusing on their normal everyday lives again. With plenty of Greek events coming up this fall, Greek life in DC should be back to normal as well.

Read past feature articles