Surviving The Storm

While reading a new friend's blog on water damage, it reminded me (along with the start of Hurricane Season yesterday) all what we went through 3 years back when Hurricane Ivan destroyed not only much of my city, but also my home. This is my story.

A Story of Survival Through Hurricane Ivan
Surviving The Storm

We sat in the garage, looking out into the night, as Hurricane Ivan came upon our shores with a furry. I shone my powerful flashlight into the blackest night I've ever known. The darkness absorbed the light as if it weren't even there. What little I could see, I caught in strobe-flashes of lightning. The winds were howling and screaming as the 140+ mph winds snapped the trees as easily as snapping beans. My face grew pale and my heart raced as I thought, This has to be the worst storm I've seen since Freddy. I was excited and scared at the same time. Adrenaline rushed throughout my veins, making me feel wired, as if on some kind of drug. Glancing at the battery operated clock, it read 1:00 a.m. I exhaled a long breath, that I didn't even realize I was holding in. We're in for a long night, I thought to myself. The storm was horrid outside, but would get much worse -- as it was expected to last until noon the next day.

The darkness kept shocking us with an eerie bluish-green bright lightning that filled the whole sky. It was followed closely by a hiss, zap and loud echo of a boom, as another transformer blew. The transformers were blowing faster than we could count. We watched as different parts of the surrounding neighborhoods went black; houses and streetlights flickered out. We still had electricity, but knew it wouldn't last much longer. As the sky lit up with a freaky green light, we heard another hiss and boom that left us in darkness. Now, there was no light any where. We were in total obscurity.

Electricity continued to fill the sky. I could hear the angry Gulf of Mexico roaring about eight miles from my home. The radio announced that a 57-foot wave had been seen out in the ocean. God only knows how big it would be by the time it made landfall. The once beautiful, serene beaches wouldn't have a chance. Their tranquil visage was already being slammed with waves and sand. In the morning, the storm will still be raging on, but the beaches would have long since lost their battle.

Standing at the door, trying to watch what I could only hear, I wondered what destruction we'd be met with in the morning. All of a sudden, when I thought the storm couldn't sound any fiercer than it already was, a noise like a train fighting to stay on tracks filled the air. My huge, beautiful oak tree that stood proudly in my front yard started leaning over. I yelled, "There she goes! Our tree is falling, it's falling!" There was so much noise that all you could hear was an eerie creak of the wood as the tree was being pulled up by its roots. It went down sluggishly at first, almost as if in slow motion, as it came to a rest in my and my neighbor's front yard.

With all my might, I leaned into the door trying to close it, while yelling, "It's a tornado!" A sound like popping popcorn was all around us.

"Lord, what is that sound?" Pop-plop, pop-plop, over and over again. Flashlights lit our shocked faces as we listened to trees falling, debris flying and fences being torn apart. The sound of the handicapped train vanished, leaving us to once again hear only the screaming wind, as if it was in pain.

It was going on 3:00-3:30 a.m. when my sister said she was going to go lie down. She went back to her room and called, "Tracey, come here, quick!" I ran back to her room. She was pointing up to her ceiling where it was bowed in two places and cracked down the middle. Water was streaming out of both of the bowed sections. We quickly found two buckets to catch the leaks. We checked the other rooms and found another room to be in just as bad a shape. It's then when we realized that the popcorn sound we heard during the tornado, had been our shingles popping off the roof one by one. We grabbed buckets, pots and pans to try and catch all of the leaks we could. Great, I thought, a leaking ceiling in the middle of a hurricane.

We all went back into the living room. Everyone was worn out. My husband fell asleep in the chair and a friend on an air mattress in the living room. Jackie, my sister, kept saying she was going to go lie down in her room.

"No, Jackie!" I begged. "Please don't go lie down. The ceiling could fall in on you at any second!"
I could see it happening just as plain as day. Twenty minutes later Jackie said, "I'll be all right, I'm going to lie down for a few minutes."

Just as I got ready to protest, we heard a loud crash, followed by a huge slosh. We ran back into her room and the whole half of her ceiling had fallen onto her bed and the surrounding area. It looked like waterfalls coming from her ceiling.

"All my stuff," she whispered.

We made a convoy line and cleaned her bedroom out in five minutes flat, except for the furniture. If the ceiling had waited five more minutes to fall, my sister would have been in bed.

"We need to go into the spare room and get all the things out, in case the ceiling falls in there as well," I said.

Everyone agreed. Then we heard another loud crash. It was too late; the ceiling was crumbling away to nothing. I stood under the waterfall and threw books, pictures, porcelain dolls and other knick-knacks toward them to be quickly carried out of the spare room into the living room.

While hussling to get as much items out of the room before it was ruined, we heard another loud noise. When we were through, we went through the house to find where the awful sound was coming from. It was the rest of Jackie's ceiling. The whole ceiling was now on the floor. The bedroom furniture might as well have been sitting outside. Turning around, we shut the door and ran into another stream of water coming from the ceiling in the hall. I went to check my room and found two more leaks there. As quickly as we could, we moved everything out of my room. We were able to save most of the items, but all of our furniture in each room was ruined. We came back into the crowded living room and sports room, which now contained three rooms full of stuff. We cleaned insulation and drywall from everything the best we could and placed them into stacks or garbage bags.

Exhausted, everyone laid down and closed their eyes. Mysterious noices filled the air -- both on the inside and outside of the house. I sat up with my flashlight and would go investigate each time I heard a crash. My mind could not compute the destruction inside my home. But I thanked God that He kept all of us safe, including my three little dogs.

I must have dozed off for almost an hour or so, because when I opened my eyes, daylight was streaming through the double doors. I quickly got up and looked outside. It felt strange seeing daylight, because it seemed so out of place in the midst of such destruction. As I looked out the door, my eyes grew wide and all I could think of was how much it resembled a war zone. It looked like bombs had been dropped all around us.

Slowly, the others started to wake as well. Not only was there total destruction outside the house, but inside as well; three feet of insulation lay scattered throughout the house. Ceiling material lay angrily at strange angles on the floor. By the time morning had arrived, the storm still howled, but no longer so fiercely. I walked through my home. The ceilings in the foyer, hall, three bedrooms and garage had all collapsed. Outside, our two biggest trees were pulled up by their roots. Branches on trees were twisted around. I could see neighbor's homes that were always protected by what were once privacy fences. The streets were not passable because the trees, power lines and floods covered most of them.

I will never forget the destruction Hurricane Ivan the Terrible brought upon us. We are still living in our living room, waiting for our FEMA trailor to be delivered. The smell of mold and mildew is still strong. Slowly we're tacking up felt for the ceilings, cleaning up the inside and outside of our home, and pulling up wet carpet so we won't have to feel the squish beneath our feet or inhale their awful, sour smell.

As I stand amidst all the destruction, I thank God, as I realize we are among the lucky ones.

10/07/04