Hurricane Ike

First of all, I think it is important to tell you that myself, my family, my pets, my home, and my precious, precious belongings are very safe and sound and secure. I am making it a point to tell you this because I am almost positive at this point that over one million people cannot even begin to utter that very sentence.

Hurricane Ike is upon us, and while I have neither understood this force of nature nor its ability to rip through land and homes without so much as a whimper, I think I am beginning to believe why this isn't a joke.

It is 5:30am on Saturday, September 13, 2008, and I am holed up in a makeshift fort I constructed in my mother's closet. My mother is under lockdown at the hospital probably operating on some poor sap who ventured out in the god-forsaken weather. My grandmother is asleep in her bedroom probably totally unaware of the havoc and almost chaotic happenings brewing outside of her window. My dog is panting hot breath into my face as I write this. My father is sleeping in my mother's bed with his dog and my cat. I can't sleep.

Earlier my father made me walk outside to witness my version of the storm. Suffice it to say the trees bowed so low to the ground that frenzied images of people drowning and buildings under siege by unrelenting waves of torrential water and debris streamed into my mind nearly flooding my own brain. It was all I could do to sit down on the warm, dry couch in my living room and cry.

My city - ruined!

Never in a million years did I think my heart would cry out for Houston, Texas. Never once have I ever seen myself as a true Texan, a true patriot for this state. I guess perspectives really can change. I can't even enjoy the thrill and adrenaline rush of an amazing, powerful storm without feeling painfully guilty that I cannot strap on some sort of death proof armor, trod off to Galveston without so much as a second though, and pull people from their no doubt flooded, breaking, unbelievably devastated homes. I wish with all of my might I could do this.

This morning (September 12th) I awoke at 9am expecting some torrential rain, but it was so quiet. It was just bland, milky skies and quiet. The news was the only thing on TV for the next 12 hours until the power failed. We watched the waves pound against the sea wall (for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a large thirty foot wall that separates the beach from the city level, which was built up after the Storm of 1900; it's a defense mechanism, and the storm was winning). At 9am the storm surge drains were already fully and inevitably spilling water into the streets - all this sixteen hours before Ike was to even touch land. I saw people and cars and things in a hurry to escape the unknown torment stewing in the gulf, breeding in the hot water, mixing inseparably with the high pressure in the air. I also saw people taking pictures and relaxing and laughing because we have already seen about four major hurricane threats this summer let alone the countless of measly sputtering of life most hurricanes are as the choke to the shore. Now I'm just thinking about the 40% who stayed on the island, the 40% whose lives are in peril. Why didn't they leave?

Right now I'm waiting for all the windows in my house to bow in until they just snap. I sat and watched the sliding glass doors undulate and bend thinking that if I were to watch any longer the glass would shatter and take me as a casualty. Dad drew the curtains back over the doors. I really don't even want to sit by it as this point.

The wind and rain have turned into this relentless organ pushing the anger through, muting the noise and switching it into whining, shaking tubes, rattling at the windows begging to be let in, yearning to push through the walls. I can hear baby birds chirping outside as they drown and die in the rain.

Maybe this is my Katrina; maybe this is my Great Experience; maybe I will be able to learn something from all of this in the coming weeks and months and years as I watch my once powerful, unbreakable city rebuild itself; maybe I'll find God in the deep flood trenches when I help my Uncle sweep water and debris from the streets of Galveston; maybe I will finally start feeling something for this city that I have never before: love.

All in all, for now, for this exact minute, I will just keep pondering away about my life and the future of everything and just listen to the barrage thundering and pressing itself inexorably against my windows. 

I can't sleep.

This entry was written last night. It is now morning and the damage is unthinkably severe. Millions are without power, windows are blown out of the skyscrapers downtown with desks and computers and blinds smashed across the street, homes are flooded in areas that were supposed to be safe, rooftops from certain buildings have peeled clean off. I just can't even understand it. Hopefully within the coming weeks I can give you more pictures and more information. Take care, be safe.

Photo Credit: The New York Times