Charley – According to Me
Posted on | August 16, 2004 | No Comments
This is my story and I’m stickin to it.
Friday
I went to work in the morning. After getting very little done we were sent home right around 10:30. No one was really there save a few of us. They gave the guys the day off because they knew they were all going to be out on Saturday working their asses off. When I woke up in the morning Charley was still supposed to hit Tampa. We anticipated him streaking across the state, making landfall somewhere around 5 and hitting Orlando sometime after 9. So after a thoroughly useless 1/2 day at work I headed home.
The sky had already begun to turn the color of pale ash. The wind was restlessly still, holding all the energy in tightly with just a whisper of the promise here and there. I found myself frightened as I headed home.
David was awake and hanging out with the beagles. We ran some last minute errands, trying to get everything settled before the onset of the storm. Dog food. Check. Cat litter check. Junk food. Check. The essesntails and non essentails were purchased amid a throng of people who half believed that we would never get hit. I wasn’t that foolish. I knew we would. I cleaned. I think it was more to keep my mind busy than to do any real work on an already clean house. But I scrubbed and swept and when it was all done, there was nothing left to do but wait.
I am not a patient person. I chew things so thoroughly in my mind, building them up to catastrophic proprotions, and I was scaring the shit out of myself. The local news wasn’t helping a bit. They are fucking hysterical, and I don’t mean in the funny way. They play things up to such a degree that I felt like my heart was trying to punch through my chest. But I was glued to the couch, allowing the horrific images of hurricanes past mold my mind in a mush of quivering, fearful jelly. Then I turned it off and tried to calm down.
Then the first band struck. I called Mom and started crying.
I have an intense fear of large storms. It’s no where near as paralyzing as my fear of open water but there is a helplessness that overwhelms me when the roll of thunder comes. Maybe it was seeing my grandparents lose almost everything in Andrew. Maybe it was because someone startled me out of a sound sleep when I was a child by shooting off a shotgun near my stroller. The reasons don’t mean much when the fear grips my belly and I find myself hunched over, nausea blanketing my form. I was sick. My tummy doesn’t react well to milk and fear. There is no Lactaid for fear so I was fucked.
We kept power till around 8:50. I had borrowed the office cell phone in order to keep in touch with anyone who would listen (and those people happened to be my mother, my sister and Julie). When the power went out, we lit the candles, and just waited. The house started getting hot, with all the windows closed tightly. No fan. No AC. Just tightly latched windows and doors and waiting.
There is a sound that nature can make. I couldn’t even begin to describe it but I can tell you what it means. It means that she can take back everything. All of it. From the shopping malls to the Hummers to the carefully crafted gardens, if it is on her surface she can take it and mold it into something unrecognizable. I respect this power, more than most. And I think she should come alive and cleam up this mess and humble the prideful masses. But she is a mysterious mother who teaches when it matters. This sound, errie wailing and moaning, rushed around my house, and tempted the cat and David to stare at it’s aweing power through the front door, which because it was glass, was covered in blue masking tape. She opened peoples’ eyes that night, with wave after wave of whirring wind. She made me remember that she can take it all. And I was scared.
I called Alexis as it got bad. I had built mself a small shelter in the hallway with my duvet, the beanbag chair, a beagle or two (depending on the attention span of the little one) and a candle. I heard things breaking, thrashing. The house shuddered. “There’s a big red line coming towards you now.” Great, I thought. I’m going to fucking die. I hung up. I didn’t want to embarrass myself, even in front of her. David held me as I trembled and we retreated to the bathroom when it got too terrible. All the kids, all three of them ended up with us, huddled on the bathroom floor. I don’t think David ever feared, but when the dogs got nervous and Valentine searched us out, I knew it was ugly.
Then there was a lul. Soft rain gentled my nerves, washing clean the sweat that streaked down my spine. The eye.
The second half of the storm did not impress or even frighten overly much. I smoked in the house as the winds still erupted from the heavens fitfully but I knew, save the unwelcome arrival of a tornado, that we would be fine.
About midnight we ventured from the house to survey the damage and see what we could see. The lights were out on the street. And I noticed that the lights were out everywhere, like she shut off the intrusive nature of the city and stilled us all in darkness. But dots of light bounced down the streets as strangers plod through water, tree debris and random bits of houses. We met a lot of our neighbors that night, strolling to and fro, letting their dogs stretch legs and take a leak. I spoke with the manager of Leu Garends, who drove like a madman, trying to see the damage in the dark. When we ventured home, we sat on the porch. The sound of the trees stirring lulled me into a restful slumber. It was the sleep of someone who had made it through unscathed.
Saturday
The damage came to light when the sun rose. We found ourselves awake near 7, due to the rising warmth and the sun’s insistant gaze. So, we took a quick hot shower (it was the last of the warm water in the water heater) and went out to survey the damage. Our fence, on the left side of the house lay limply, swollen by rain. But, beyond the branches shed by our lovely sycamore, there was no real damage to our house. The bouganvilla next to the house blew over, but I hated that damn thing anyway.
Down the street, the damage was more severe. Massive oaks, once tall and proud, fell prey to the wild winds and completly blocked the end of Nebraska. Our street had become a dead end. Transformers had shattered and down Corrine, concrete poles looked like nothing more than dust. I needed coffee, desperately, so we searched the downtown area for refreshments. The only thing open was a 7-11, and we made our way in. People were arguing over who got coffee first, spitting impatience this way and that. I resigned myself to a soda and smiled as she asked “Cash or Credit?” We didn’t have much cash, so I knew things could get hairy. So we charged $11.21 worth of water, soda and other munchies and set off on a journey to see what there was to see.
Street signs on their bellies, trees on their back and airplanes in painful positions. Streets that I loved for their expansive shade and interesting shadows had been torn apart by upturned roots and toppled trees. I knew that friends had homes just beyond the tangles mess, but I couldn’t reach them. Traversing downtown was like playing a life sized game of maze and it began to wear thin.
We went home to sit on the porch, because without electricity, there’s nothing else to do. Luckily we both had books to read, so we dove into them, and tried to forget the coming heat. A few visitors popped by, welcome sights since I had no way of contacting anyone. And then night began to fall and it wasn’t so fun.
Sleeping in sweat = miserable.
Sunday
Woke early again, fed the pups and tried to remain positive about the heat. But we had to escape it, it was a must. The mall was open, so we ate lunch there and ventured to the comic book store. Saw someone I thought I knew and was quite disturbed, but that’s another entry. Ran in the rainstorms, got all hot. Wished for air conditioning and happiness. Julie came by. She weathered the storm well at her X’s house, but her casa is blocked by big trees. And she is also without power.
Got Sunday blues – why? Because I didn’t really get a fucking weekend!
Today – I’m at work and praying for power. Want to pray with me?
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