Isabel

[Noah II]

[Noah II]

Beautiful but Deadly

[ampersat]

boy do i miss hurricanes. as a good ol' boy from south texas, it's just one of those things. If you’ve never been through one, you wouldn’t understand it. Having been through several, I’ll never forget it.

mom worked in the insurance industry up until her last days and she would always tell me when they stopped selling hurricane and flood insurance. as soon as a hurricane would enter the gulf of mexico proper (wherever that line is), they were no longer allowed to write insurance policies and that always meant something was afoot. we might just get a few puffs of wind and a little rain or it might come bearing down on us. either way, it was something big. as an adult i realize now it wasn't a good thing and what people go through and the costs of the massive destruction they cause and even the deaths. but as a kid, it was something big and that made it something special.

it was all the talk. you couldn't take two steps without reading about it, seeing it on tv or hearing people discuss this or that about it. guessing where it would land was always something of a pasttime. folks always brought up the 1900 galveston hurricane. i don't think they even bothered to name them back in those days. something like 10,000 people died in that storm because of the massive storm surge that swept over Galveston island. Bodies were found up in the trees where the storm’s waves had placed them. More bodies were found buried in the sand along the beach. The dead were literally everywhere. they took a large number of the bodies out into the gulf of mexico and tried to sink them. it was one of those quick sort of public health decision things. what else are they going to do with 10,000 human bodies? a few days later, they washed back in to the surf. So they turned to cremation and burned the bodies for months on end. “dead gangs” were kept in a constant stupor of whiskey and threatened at gunpoint to continue their gruesome work. The storm struck land on September 8, 1900 and they were still finding bodies as late as February of the following year. It remains the worst natural disaster in US history. that was also a good time for her to tell me again about the time the san bernard and brazos rivers almost met along a certain stretch of highway, which is an almost unthinkable event to anyone who had not been there to see it for themselves. i forget which storm that was but i think she was pretty young when it happened.

as it got closer, there was all sorts of activity. folks preparing, usually just in small ways. picking up or nailing down the loose stuff around the house and homestead. lawn chairs, the doghouse, the plastic pool. getting canned food and bottled water, batteries and kerosene for lamps, gassing up the car, maybe packing up the family treasures in case a quick getaway would be required. you never really knew where the heck the thing was going to come ashore or how powerful it would be when it did so they started small and worked their way up as they deemed appropriate.

as it would zero in, more preparations were made. windows would be boarded up with plywood. folks with horses would load them up and move them further inland. folks with cows would make what preparations they could for them since there was usually too many of them to move. lots of people would pack up the family and head to stay with friends or relatives further inland. plenty of people stayed though, because they wanted to be there in case there was something they could do to protect their property or they didn't have somewhere else they could go or they were having or going to a hurricane party.

it was macabre sort of ritual not too much unlike poe's "the masque of the red death". while the police and state authorities were urging everyone to evacuate, these folks gather at a house somewhere near the beach, lay in a stock of liquor and food and start partying away. unlike "the masque", i don't ever remember hearing about a houseful of people being killed or even the house itself being severely damaged or destroyed. i guess it was one of those “cheating death” kinds of things.

anyway, as a kid it all big time stuff for me. the little town i grew up in had a population somewhere around 3,000 and something like this got every last one of them stirred up. i would ride all over town on my bike watching people go here and there getting this and that. it was a lot of activity for such a small town. most of the non-retail type businesses would close their doors (and board or tape them up) and allow folks to do what they had to do. Then the nature side of things got started. it would usually be a nice clear blue sunny day ahead of the impending storm. without the satellite images of what was coming you wouldn't really know what you were in for. then, almost all at once, it was different. i could feel the change in the barometric pressure. a slight wind would pick up and the birds would get very active. not in the lazy sort of way they went about their daily business. they would be agitated and flew with purpose in what they were doing. dogs being dogs, there really wasn't much for them to do about it but you could still see it on their faces. right about then I would notice that there weren't very many cars and trucks left on the road. about the only places still open were the convenience stores. the wind would be getting stronger, maybe gusting to twenty mph, the road signs would twitch, the traffic lights would sway back and forth, and the trees would start whooshing. the approaching clouds could be seen on the distant horizon. At first, all you could see would be the huge stark white thunderheads rising thousands of feet into the sky but as it got closer you could make out the dark ominous heavy wet clouds at the bottom. with the first drops of rain, I would head to the house.

mom would always be sitting at the dining table with the news on when i'd get home. she was very nervous about this stuff and as an adult i now understand why. being some forty some odd miles from the actual beach, her house was only about twenty four feet above sea level. we didn't have to worry about the storm surge making it to the front door. the problem was all the rain. an average hurricane would dump six to eight inches of rain or more in a few hours when it came through. it would soak the ground and the ditches would be full and there was always the chance that the rivers would flood their banks and the surrounding areas. there was also the wind and the possibility of a tornado touching down. i've been through four major hurricanes that came through southern texas and none of them ever did any damage to her house or property. the worst it ever got was when the water made it halfway up the yard to the front door. i remember one time it flooded to the point that the ditches stayed full for three days and we caught catfish in them and floated around in big tire innertubes.

for some reason, hurricanes always seemed to come ashore late in the afternoon and the worst of it would happen at night. i'd sit on the couch and watch TV with mom while the newscasters went to this or that reporter out in the rain somewhere or the weather person with the latest satellite images. all the while, the wind would howl at the doors, the rain would pelt the windows, lightning would flash and the thunder seemed to shake the concrete foundation of the house. only a few times do i seem to recall losing electricity. i'd stay up until midnight or so keeping abreast of the events and then wander off to bed, not giving it another thought.

in the morning, i'd come in and sit at the dining table with mom, watch TV, eat my fruit loops or cap'n crunch and catch up on what had happened. several trailer parks would be destroyed, businesses would have their roofs caved in from the rain or ripped off from the winds. they'd talk about all the flooding. after i put the milk away and the bowl and spoon in the sink, i was off on my bike again to see if anything interesting had happened in our area. usually, there was plenty of water in the ditches and yards. there'd be stuff blown into places they shouldn't be, like a plastic pool up against a garage or something. the biggest stuff i'd see would be downed trees. i don't seem to remember there being much property damage in our general vicinity.

there was a clean smell to the air in the aftermath of the hurricanes. roads and roofs seemed to be washed clean. blue sky had returned and the clouds resumed their regular formation. by midday, the traffic would resume its regular ways. all the people who had taken off for inland would be making their way back home, driving with their fingers crossed that nothing had happened to their homes or their cows. adults who had stayed up late into the night were ready for naps and kids who slept blissfully unaware were ready to go play in the flooded ditches and yards.

[ 09-20-2003, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: ampersat ]

[Noah II]

WOW
That's a great story.
Thanks

[freespool]

I've never been through a hurricane,but I did experience the Columbus Day storm on the south Oregon coast. Winds is excess of 180mph,I think that's a catagory 5 hurricane. Something one will never forget.

[Gus Orviston]

Apparently this photo is a hoax. and actually not Isabel. In fact it is suspected that it is highly touched up since the seas are virutally flat.

I have been on two vacations...1 in Hawaii and the other in Australia where Hurricanes hit. I was traveling to Kaui, but changed my reservations at the last minute and went to Maui first....Iniki (cat 4) smacked Kaui dead center at 140mph, messed up Maui pretty good too and our vacation. I then decided just to stay on Maui, but you couldn't get to Kaui if you wanted to. Whew, glad I didn't go, our bed and breakfast was whipped off the map, since it was on the tip of the Island the storm hit.

Then on my honey moon we were in Cairns Aus, and Cyclone (spins the other way) Rona, changed its path to go right over the top of our resort, we were dead center on the leading edge of the eye, it was a Cat 3 with winds in the 130s. All quest were required to come in from their rooms and move into the basement. I was on line with my computer tracking the storm for the resort, it was a lot of fun and I glad it was only a cat 3.

gus

[RvW]

Pat Robertson summoned Isabel to destroy Disney and Epcot.
Instead, Isabel headed straight for the Robertson house

[Joe Schwab]

Just got back from a week in Ocean City, Md. We went down to the boardwalk at the height of Isabel. I've seen worse winds in Tillamook. Actually most of the damage was sustained by tidal surges. They were inside Chesapeake and went 6-8 feet over the top of the seawalls. Most of the damage of course was in N.C. and upper Chesapeake.

I never could figure out the logic of building communities 3 feet above sea level and then acting surprised when old ma nature takes some of it back.

[Joe Schwab]

[ 09-25-2003, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: Capt. Hook ]

[RvW]

I guess Isabel hit a little closer to home than I thought. My sister and her three children live outside of Dulles Va. and got hammered. They baught the place only 6 months ago, 12 acres of trees and a historical house. Evidently about 10 of those trees landed on that house or the fence or the outbuildings while they were home. One went completely through the master bedroom to the floor as they were sitting on the hearth of the fireplace..frightened the heck out of them and tore up the house pretty bad. Not to mention all the largest trees are gone. :shocked:

[Pete]

Same story for my mom and sister in Maryland. The heavy rain softened the ground enough that lots of trees came down in both their yards. Fortunately, none hit their homes, but they were without power for 6 days which meant the food in their freezers were lost and, with well water, they had no water since they depend on electric pumps. It's been quite a year. Both houses got new roofs earlier from hail damage and my sister had her house resided due to the hail.