Monday, August 18, 2008

MORE HURRICANES

Tropical storm Fay has been dumping rain on us since I stumbled out of my cozy spot in the closet at 6 this morning for breakfast. Probably was before then, too. 

But it's been blowing through very quickly. The outer bands, ma says. A few minutes of rain so dense the parking lot across the street practically disappears. Then calm - the sky a nice, dozy gray. Mom and I even went out on the porch for long while where she brushed me, my fur spiraling up and around in the breeze. I love that. 

It's expected to be wetter tomorrow and windier. But no evacuation horrors this time as it's over on Florida's west coast and we're down here hugging the southeast coast. I failed to mention that in my last hurricane post. Easy to be blase when you're not in the bulls-eye! 

The year after we moved from the beach bungalow (see Aug. 16 post) to this place, Hurricane Katrina plowed through, its eye passing just south of us. Mom took this photo from the 7-foot windows in our living room. 

At this point Katrina was a minimal hurricane, becoming the Cat. 5 monster after reaching the warm Gulf waters.

In our little part of the world, the worst hurricane was yet to come. Wilma struck exactly two months later. Mostly, I remember the wind shrieking as it whipped around the corner of the building, a corner our mostly glass living room is nestled in. From behind the hurricane windows, the folks watched debris large and small shoot up the street as if on high-speed rails. 

The cars parked below wiggled and jiggled so much that some ended up angled when they had originally been parked straight. Incredibly, slivers of space remained between the repositioned vehicles and none hit each other. 

Then the wind shifted and became so fierce, water blasted up through the windows panes all along the wall where my folks were standing and poured down to the floor. Every towel and blanket was put into action, but still my folks had to wring out the soaked linens into buckets.

When it was all over, almost a third of the state's population was without power - including us. That lasted six long days (for us). But we were lucky. After the water dried up, our window sills and floor were coated in sand, but at least those hurricane windows held out. Some of those in our building who had not upgraded sustained damage to their units when their old windows blew out. 

Mom didn't take any pictures of any of this. But while walking to the supermarket a few days later, she spotted something that made her laugh out loud. 

'Nuff said!

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