Hurricane Alicia
Twenty-one
people died, many more people who lived in Galveston and Houston were injured from Alicia,
our family’s first experience with a hurricane only a few years after moving to Houston. Hurricane Alicia, a stage three hurricane, caused 2
billion dollars in damage…her force was bad but it could have been much worse. Hurricanes since have taught us that lesson. This is my story of what happened that August day
over twenty years ago.
My
son Todd and daughter Beth thought they were in the middle of an adventure, I knew I was
in the middle of another “He owes me.” incident.
The winds started bending the pine trees and beating our house about 5:00 in
the morning. I brought Todd and Beth
downstairs from their bedrooms and we sat on the couch and listened to the rain from
Hurricane Alicia pelting the plate glass windows driven by 75 mph winds, or so the local
weather channel reported. I regretted not
taping those windows. By 6:00 a.m. our section
of Houston lost electricity just after the coffeepot stopped brewing. Why had I stocked my freezer yesterday? Since I had never experienced a hurricane, I had
reasoned that we lived so far inland that any hurricane would not be a danger. I was
wrong.
And then, my husband
Doug called. “Hi honey, how is
everything?” Doug telephoned just before
flying into the Idaho backcountry for three days of fly fishing. He would not be able to call again until he
finished his trip and flew home. And so, even
though I felt panicked, I spoke as calmly as possible to ease his fears, telling him that
the hurricane hit Galveston before dawn that morning, but I have a cup of hot coffee so I
was happy. Then I said good bye with a “Got
to go…Love you.”
I
didn’t have time to talk to Doug on the telephone.
The front side of the hurricane, with the rain and wind rattling the windows
and my nerves had ended. And Doug had called just as the eye of Hurricane Alicia had
opened up directly overhead and moments after Todd and Beth escaped into the streets with
some of their neighborhood friends. The
streets were strewn with huge tree limbs, shingles, and roofing nails. It was 7:00 in the morning and I remembered that
after the eye of the hurricane had passed, another helping of rain and wind would follow. And that the “dirty side” of the
hurricane could be more severe than we had already experienced. I hoped that Alicia would not bring tornadoes. I knew it could.
Back in the house, we
watched Alicia’s second assault as the trees swayed violently and the wind swirled
around us. The force of the hurricane winds
had diminished since the 115 M.P.H. winds on Galveston Island but still strong and
destructive. I heard the tree limbs in front of the house bombard our roof, not realizing
that the limbs and wind were tearing off shingles and opening a large hole into the attic.
By
afternoon, the storm had passed. We had no electricity, along with 750,000 other
households. There was a hole in the roof the
size of a manhole cover while tree limbs, pine needles and wooden shingles layered our
front lawn. In the backyard more pine needles
and leaves floated in the swimming pool while black dirt and branches littered the white
plaster at the bottom. But we were alive and
safe.
After the hurricane
ended, while Doug fished in Idaho, Todd, Beth and I cleared the lawn of as many shingles,
tree limbs, and pine needles as we could carry and bag up. A repairman offered to mend the
roof for $100 and I readily agreed. We had not
lost our natural gas and so, for three days until the electricity came back on I cooked on
the outdoor BBQ grill. I heated up cans of
corn, grilled all the meat from the freezer and even popped popcorn on the grill for a
treat. Thankfully we always had water to
drink. I gained five pounds eating chicken,
hamburgers and steaks, ice cream, sherbet, and cold frozen waffles and that was the first
day. Unfortunately, the Popsicle’s could
not be saved.
After the downed power
lines were fixed and the major cleanup of our area had begun, Doug flew home from his
pleasure trip to Idaho. Since he had never
experienced a hurricane, he did not understand the fierceness of Alicia. As we drove into our driveway, he asked why I had
not cleaned up the yard. I scowled and told
him that the yard had been picked up and pointed to twenty trash bags full of proof. I explained to him that I had paid $100 for a man
to repair the roof and Doug suggested that I may have paid too much. My husband began to feel my dissatisfaction with
his attitude so he hurriedly commented on how nice the pool looked…we had not cleaned
up the pool.
After I told him of my
last four days of violent storm, no air conditioning, sore muscles from yard work and two
children bored with their twentieth bowl of ice cream soup, Doug showed me photos of his
fishing trip. The photos were taken of the
fishing party with Doug, all smiles before boarding their private plane just minutes after
his 7:00 a.m. phone call to me. As the
hurricane’s eye hovered over my head and HIS children were outside playing in the
debris, I noticed in the photos that he was laughing and partying. The photos made me suspect that my husband wasn’t
as worried about his family as he had claimed on the telephone. He quickly mumbled something about how I had told
him all was fine. He believed that!
So
for the future, I have a plan. It’s a
“payback” plan. Next time a
hurricane heads for Galveston Island, I will jet off to Idaho. Maybe I’ll go fishing. And guess who will stay home to watch the hurricane
pass overhead. Guess who better learn how to pop popcorn on the grill.
NOTE: In 2001when Tropical Storm Allison dumped over 15 inches of
rain at our house, I was in Illinois. My
“plan” worked, kind of. Doug had to
deal with the flooding, but not with a hole in the roof or two restless children. He STILL owes me…pay back wasn’t mine,
drats.