I have really been in a major funk for the past week. The tv set has only been turned on to pop in a dvd, because I cannot bear to watch the coverage of the disaster known as Hurricane Katrina. I've seen hurricanes first hand. They terrify me.
This makes me feel guilty in a way, but watching the horror and anguish of the survivors is even more gut wrenching than what we all witnessed when the tsunami struck last December. Part of it is that there was warning for this event. People knew it was coming.
Certainly, everyone was not able to evacuate from the area, for economic or physical reasons. The thing that struck me the cruelest were the jokes that were being circulated before the storm struck, like the sign that said, "We don't run from hurricanes, we drink them." There are always going to be idiots. Those people I do not fret over. They should know better, but they choose to hang around. My heart goes out to those who cannot flee.
The reason I turned off the tv coverage was seeing people smiling and waving at the camera as they looted stores, carrying out racks of sporting goods and expensive electronics. Need is one thing. Greed is a whole something else. These people stayed around because they were thinking about the spoils of disaster. They were there for what they could get because they knew they could get away with it. Bad karma, people.
I heard enough on the radio to keep me informed, but I couldn't deal with the pictures that I knew would haunt me. Maybe this is a huge character flaw in me, but knowing that there is nothing in this world that I can do about any of it left me feeling powerless, remorseful, and grieving for people I do not know.
I've been through hurricanes. I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, a few miles inland and at about 11 feet above sea level. Back then, we had some warning about storms, but nothing like we have now. My father taught me how to listen for the coordinates of the storm on the weather radio broadcasts, and showed me how to chart those locations on a gridded map that we kept on the wall of the dining room. He diligently watched the barometer that hung next to the map, and would try to make some best guesses about what to do in case it came to close to us. There was no Weather Channel with technicolor radar and up to the minute coverage. The only thing we saw on tv was the little hurricane symbol stuck onto the weatherman's map at 6 and 10 o'clock. Between then, all you could do is plot your own from the latest on the radio, updated every four to six hours.
In 1959, there was a hurricane that came up our alley, and my father boarded up the windows with big planks except for one on the north side of the house, so he could look out at the storm. We did not leave that time. The part I do remember is how dark the house was, and that my mother brought out a kerosene lamp and some candles in case the power went out. I played Zorro with my red cowboy hat, a red felt apron someone had given my grandmother for some reason wrapped around my shoulders for a cape, and a TinkerToy sword to make the mark of Zorro on anything that would stand still. I colored pictures in my coloring books. I'm sure I whined to go out and play in the rising water in the yard. But the sense of dread that I got from the adults in the house made me know there was something to be afraid of in this odd event. The wind howled and the rain blew sideways down the streets. The ditches filled up, and the yard flooded up to the top step. But no major damage other than tree limbs downed.
Official stats:
July 22-27, 1959 -- Hurricane Debra, Galveston: $6 million damage.1959 hurricane debra in july press 29.07. Winds gusted to 105 mph near Freeport. Hurricane force winds were experienced 100 miles inland. Storm surge 8 ft over 14" of rain.
Debra (Cat. 1 Hurricane - July 24th landfall)
Debra was called a "mild weather upset turned suddenly into a vicious storm." Debra hit Freeport with 100 mph winds only 36 hours after forming and maintaining hurricane winds 100 miles inland. The eye passed directly over Deer Park and La Porte on the 25th. Highest Houston winds were 82 mph, and 8.08 inches of rain was recorded.
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We had been in school less than a week, starting the day after Labor Day for the new year. The weather reports were not good, and the teachers were getting antsy about how they were going to make up the time we might lose to the storm. We were released early one day, and that evening I held the nails as my father once again boarded up the windows on our house. He was doing the front side when the neighbour, Frenchie LeRibous, came across the street.
"Whatcha doin', Woody?" he said, even though it was pretty obvious.
"Gettin' ready to leave before the storm", my dad replied, still hammering nails.
"Well, hell, I ain't goin' nowhere." Frenchie boasted, "That house was built for wind."
I will never forget thinking to myself, Yeah, it was built for you, you old windbag.
We packed the 1959 Buick LeSabre, piled us four kids, my grandmother, and my parents in, and left early the next morning before daylight, heading north of Houston to Huntsville. My father worked as an electrician for the state department of corrections. The new prison farm they were constructing wasn't complete, but some of the housing for the prison guards' families was almost done, and the state offered us that as a place of shelter. We got there mid morning, and it was so hot and dry that the sticker-burrs were all over the yard and getting in my feet. There was no real grass yet, as the construction was barely done.
We had no luggage, just a few clothes in paper bags, and a box with some non-perishable food in it. I remember eating vienna sausages and Ritz Crackers, sitting on the floor in the duplex. We had a battery radio, and someone had gotten some cots for us to sleep on. We might have brought those with us, since my father was a scoutmaster. That part I don't remember.
By that evening, we went over to a Red Cross shelter set up in a school for a hot meal. They had hot food for us when we could come out and get it, and I remember not really liking the beef stew and cornbread, but eating it anyway. They had clothes that people had donated for the refugees; I got my first pair of denim jeans at the shelter. They were grey, not blue, but I thought it was great.
It began to rain the first evening, and we hunkered down in the house as the power went out. The house got very hot inside, and it was a miserable time. It stormed rather hard considering how far away we were from the coast; power was out in half of Texas. My father fiddled with the radio, trying to get some news from our hometown. There wasn't much coming out of the Freeport/Galveston area, because the water was so high no one could get in to find out what had happened. That was the first time I remember hearing the phrase "No news is good news", but I could tell he didn't believe it. We had no idea if we would even have a home when we got back.
Finally the word came through that the roads were passable. It had rained the whole time we were in Huntsville. By the time we got ready to leave the place, there was so much mud that one of my brothers carried me piggyback out to the car so I wouldn't get stuck and nasty. A far cry from the sun-parched yard a few days earlier.
The closer to home we got, the more evident things were bad. Power lines were down. Trees were flattened. Water was in ditches everywhere. We heard that people needed to watch out for snakes in houses. The radio reported dead cattle were hanging in powerlines and in trees. We figuratively held our breath as we turned down our street and headed to the house.
It was still standing. Our cedar trees were uprooted; the huge antenna for my father's ham radio was wrapped halfway around the house. Water was still in the yard and when we got out, our cat came out of the neighbor's garage, looking half drowned. She had evidently been up in the rafters. The worst damage was the warped hardwood floor where the water had been so high under the house, and the water leaks where some shingles had blown off. But we were very lucky, indeed.
Official stats:
Hurricane Carla, September 10. 1961: Hurricane Carla was the largest and most intense Gulf Coast hurricane in decades. On September 8, Carla's center took aim at the Texas coast. By the 9th, Carla's circulation enveloped the entire Gulf of Mexico with fringe effects along all Gulf Coast states. On the 9th, the largest mass evacuation to that date occurred, as an estimated one-half million residents of low coastal areas and islands off Texas and Louisiana were evacuated to higher ground. As the center approached Texas on the 10th, winds near the center were estimated at 150 mph. Reconnaissance aircraft indicated a central pressure of 931 mb just prior to its striking the coast. Only 46 lost their lives because of early warnings. Severe damage ang a wide expanse of the Texas coast was caused by unusually prolonged winds,high tides and flooding from torrential rains. Damage was about $2 billion in 1990 dollars. [Source:www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/mgch.html]
Hurricane Carla. 465 injured.
Winds: 150mph. Pressure 931 mb. Hurricane force gusts were reported all along the Texas Coast from a short distance north of Brownsville to Port Arthur. 26 tornadoes. Hurricane Carla is the largest storm on record.
***
The thing that stands out most for me was the story of the family at Oyster Creek who decided to ride out the storm. This family had several adopted children, and they all drowned except for one, who was found floating on the roof of the house miles away. His story was told on the cover of Life Magazine. The most ironic part is that to have survived this horror, he was later killed in Vietnam.
***
Now for the last big one I experienced: Allen. My husband and I had already lost a car to a flood in Houston, and we decided that we were leaving town when Allen approached. Everyone else had the same idea. We attempted to get a taxi to the airport. None available. So we took the car, and it was several hours before we could get across town to the airport, and by then, it would be morning before we could fly out. We sat up all night in the airport, taking an early morning flight to Atlanta, then Virginia. By the time we reached Virginia, the storm had turned southward and made landfall near Brownsville. We stayed two days in Virginia, looked around at possibly where we might live, and when we went back to Texas, we began plans to move away from the Gulf Coast. I've never moved back.
Official Stats:
Hurricane Allen. Auqust 9-10. 1980: When it was over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Allen was one of the most intense hurricanes ever. Allen reached Category 5 status three times. It obtained a 911 mb (26.89 inches) central pressure in the eastern Caribbean on August 5 while south of Puerto Rico. After weakening near Haiti and Jamaica,Allen again strengthened and a minimum pressure of 899 mb (26.55 inches) was recorded by a NOAA aircraft on the 7th when it was off the Yucatan Peninsula. Only Hurricane Gilbert with the all time low pressure reading of 888 mb in 1988, and the infamous Labor Day hurricane of 1935 with a central pressure of 892 mb were lower than Allen's 899 mb central pressure. Allen lost strength again near the Yucatan Peninsula but regained it over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico with a central pressure of 909 mb (26.84 inches) on 9th.
The center of Allen did not cross any land until it moved inland north of Brownsville, TX on the 9th. Just off the Texas coast, Allen hesitated long enough to weaken to 945 mb (27.91 inches), and then moved inland north of Brownsville bringing highest tides and winds over the least populated section of the Texas coast.
Only two deaths were directly attributed to Allen. The strongest measured winds were gusts to 129 mph at Port Mansfield, TX. A storm surge up to 12 feet along Padre Island caused numerous barrier island cuts and washouts. [Source: www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/mgch.html]
Now, maybe you might realise why I could not watch all the coverage of Katrina.
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