Rolling Down the River (continued part 5)

Mike was sleeping in his closet as the hurricane approached. He had cleared a small space where he could shut out the noise and keep safe from any possible flying debris. His closet was an “inside room" with no windows. He stayed in his cocoon while the kids and I stayed out in the den. The outer bands of the hurricane hit us slightly after midnight. That is when the electricity went off. The hurricane itself made landfall at 2:10 A.M. slamming into Galveston as a strong category 2, with a category 5 equivalent storm surge. As the winds picked up we began to hear the howling of the blasting air. Loud banging on the wood that covered our windows prevented Tom and I from sleeping. Just when we would doze off, something would crash into the wood, waking us suddenly. I decided it was time for Bill Cosby to try and get us through. When the boys were in high school, trying to adjust to their new environment I had found old Bill Cosby comedy I had bought on CD. I played his stand up for them and we laughed so hard we fell off our couch. Even though so much of his material was written when I was a small child, it was still relevant. I had listened to these very bits when I was young going through my own adjustment period with a friend. Her dad had Bill Cosby albums that we played so often they had permanent grooves in the vinyl. I had decided to show my sons how to laugh when things got tough. Trying to distract us from the fear, the loud banging, and the ever increasing noise created by the gale force winds, I pushed the on button for Tom and I to have a laugh. We sat there; my son and I listening to Bill make fun of himself, his brother and his dad. As the hurricane got closer and closer we sat in the candle light giggling at the innocent silliness of Bill referring to himself as Jesus Christ. When one CD had finished and we were still awake I reached for another one. Tom and I sat in the dark, huddled together listening as the others slept. Occasionally we would jump at an unexpected tree limb crashing into the house. For hours the wind tore at our trees and our surroundings. We could not see out, but I really don’t think either one of us wanted to see what was going on outside. Tom, lying on his temporary bed, closed his eyes and out of exhaustion fell into a fitful sleep. I remained awake, scared and shaking as the sound of the hurricane continued just outside our house. My eyes had just started to close when I bolted awake, sitting upright on the couch. I listened intently for sounds of the storm. It was completely still. The silence was deafening. All I heard was the soft breathing of my children sleeping next to me. I grabbed the radio and tuned into the news. The eye of the hurricane was directly over us. I grabbed the dogs and headed for the kitchen door, to get them outside to go pee while I could. I only had about an hour to survey what had transpired so far with the deadly Ike. It was still dark outside and I could barely see anything. I looked around while encouraging the dogs to go, still listening to the radio. People were reporting damage, reporting deaths, reporting what it was they saw and experienced. I heard a woman forty minutes North West of us was killed while she slept, when a tree hit her house slicing right through it. She had been alone, in her bed waiting for the storm to pass. I was afraid of our trees, these tall monsters that were living in sand. The root systems were shallow and deadly if uprooted. I stood in my kitchen doorway grateful we had a two story house, giving us some protection from the possibility of trees falling directly on top of us. The dogs were hesitant to go outside, but we only had minutes before the second half of the storm came barreling down on us, so I ran outside yelling at them to go. Each dog found a spot near the house to do what they had to and I stood looking at the dark sky. The radio news said the eye was moving north. I felt the wind pick up, and Tom had woken, coming to the door to see what was going on. I looked at my son, my beautiful boy, and asked, “Couldn’t sleep?” Tom wiped his eyes, bloodshot and weary and shook his head. The dogs did their thing and headed in right away while Tom and I lingered for a while longer, knowing we would soon be locked in again for hours. We just stood there by the house staring out our yard, listening to the nothingness. I was just about to say, “Maybe we should go in”, when the wind picked up gusting so much that it nearly sucked the two of us out into the middle of the yard. Fighting against the incredible air force we fought our way to the door, climbing in as the wind slammed it behind us. Round two had begun. The back side of Hurricane Ike was under way. It would be several hours, in full day light before we would be able to go out again. Once more we hunkered down inside our house as more crashing sounds, more creaking from trees, more howling sounds and more terror came in from the outstretched bands of the storm.
Everything was pitch black, the sky covered in a cloak of thick, dark storm clouds. There wasn’t much to see even when I was outside. With the electricity gone, the streets were black, houses were dark and no sounds except the battering storm could be heard. Feeling exhausted I lay down on our couch, closed my eyes, said a small prayer and went to sleep. The last thing I remember was hearing the radio say was there was a fire in Galveston. The hurricane had ripped through there leaving utter devastation. As I drifted off, I prayed for everyone still there. I prayed that if they must die, they die without suffering. I prayed that we make it safely to the other side of Ike.
I had only slept for a few hours when once again I bolted straight up from my prone position to hear absolutely nothing. Silence had fallen on our storm weary home. I jumped to my feet to look outside the door, opening it carefully, bracing myself for whatever might have transpired just beyond our threshold. The sun was up as the band s of rain poured from the sky. The wind had died down to almost nothing. The first thing I saw was our fence was down. I looked across the bayou and saw everybody’s fence was down. Having a bayou directly behind our house created a sort of wind tunnel for the strong bands of air from the hurricane. I had noticed that with Rita too. I believe it spared us from more damage, this alley-way of least resistance for the hurricanes to blow through.
Mike had gotten up and we went out to see what had happened as we had waited inside, barricaded in from the elements. The back yard had debris, leaves, pine needles, some small tree limbs downed, and our fence that now leaned heavy against the broken posts. We looked around outside our gate so see almost every fence blown down, but no other heavy damage. Mike and I looked at each other stunned. With all we heard, with all the reports that had coming pouring in over the radio, we hadn’t seen any real damage to houses or structures, yet.
Mike went first walking toward the front of the house. I was hesitant; walking very slowly, afraid of what might be in store for us. In our front yard were two rather large branches eight to ten inches in diameter laying on the grass near the house. I looked at the proximity to our home. I felt like we had had a close call. The neighbors had begun to venture out also, the few that were still there. We waved as people surveyed their property for damage. Somewhere in the distance we heard a generator start up, rumbling loudly as it provided power to a single house, surrounded the rest of the now still homes on our block. “Lucky”, I thought wishing we had one also. Down the street we saw where one of the houses had a big tree lying sideways on their garage roof. Other trees were down, but houses were spared. “How is that the trees were up rooted and didn’t land on the houses?” I asked Michael in awe. Mike just shook his head. “I don’t know, baby. Maybe we were just lucky.”
Our land line phone still worked. Our cell phones were all jammed, many towers crushed to the ground. We could still text at times but had to wait hours for a response. I called my parents to tell them we had survived, nearly unscathed. Mike called his parents too. We just wanted people to know we were going to be alright. We were optimistic but still unsure of some things. Even though we had not been devastated by the direct hit, we knew others in our own area had not been as lucky. Standing outside we had already heard that the front area of our town had been ripped apart. There was another neighborhood only a couple of miles away that had also been hit very hard by Ike. Our neighborhood had been lucky, that is all it was, just being in the right place at eh right time; or as I like to call it a divine intervention. The air was cooler as we walked around seeing how the trees had been pulled from the ground as if a giant were weeding out the neighborhood. These several ton giants lay on their side felled by the howling winds of the previous night. More and more people came out into the daylight stunned by what they saw, surprised that no one around us was hurt, grateful that we had each other to help with the inevitable clean up.