Irma swirls into town

Sunday night we watched hurricane coverage. It was everywhere. Our local stations spent the entire day warning us. Danger! Danger! Irma was coming. By this point we knew. Where she was going changed by the hour. First she was heading our way. Then she took a turn to the east. Either way she was coming fast and furious and as a category two, much less than the five or four we were looking at in the beginning of the week. It might have made us a bit giddy.

Our power went out sometime after eleven o'clock. It had flickered and had gone off twice before popping back on again so when it finally went out we were ready. We have UPS batteries on our TV's so when the power went out our TV was still going. That confused Grandma who was hunkering down with us and we had a few laughs because nothing is more fun than making fun of the elderly. The TV lasted for ten minutes and then we were in complete darkness. We each had a lantern and we had a plan to hang out in the middle bedroom figuring it was the safest.

Tom went right to sleep. Plopped down on the bed and was snoring within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. Grandma decided she was safe in the other bedroom as there is a door between the two rooms and she sat up and read with a flashlight, but not before taking out her hearing aids. I lay against the concrete wall and away from the window and listened as the wind picked up and howled. We were told the storm would last for two to three hours and so I kept my phone on my chest and periodically checked the time. The winds came in at a gust of 85 to 100 mph and the noise was like a freight train through the board over the bedroom window.

BAM! Something hit the side of the house and I jumped up. I tried to pinpoint where the item had hit the house, but then BAM there it was in another part of the house. I was jumping up every time I heard it. Finally, Tom got out of bed and without telling me went outside to walk the perimeter. The dog started howling at the loss of his dad and knowing that he does this when Tom goes outside I realized my husband was outside. WTH? I freaked out and ran around the windows that weren't boarded trying to follow the flashlight beam as if that would do me some good if he got carried off in a huge gust. Eventually he came back in wet and winded. Our gutter spout had been torn off and was clanging against the house as it was whipped around. He secured it and we went back to the "safe room", peeking in at Grandma who was still reading and completely unaware that her first born had done exactly what the newscasters had told us not to do.

Tom changed his clothes and promptly fell asleep again. The wind continued its howling and roaring and my heart started racing and my mind went to that place where it started listing all of the horrible things that could happen. It was scary. I've been through several tornadoes. I'm from the Midwest after all, but this was different. There aren't any shelters for hurricanes underground and while a tornado rips through in minutes, a hurricane lingers. Irma certainly did. Things hit the roof with a BANG and I would jump up. As the wind whirled and whistled, I kept hearing a creaking noise like the door opening on a haunted house.

Me: "What is that?"
Tom: Snore. Snore.
Grandma: "What? Oh, I'm just reading."

It was like a comedy show. Finally, I crawled over Tom and crept out of the bedroom to locate the noise. I was sure it was our back windows covered by the large sheets of plywood my Indiana relatives brought and assembled. At any minute the entire back of my house was going to blow, that noise was just a warning. Instead it turned out to be my interior french doors between my dining room and the Steelers room, which I had insisted on closing since I was sure that room was going to be the second thing to blow off after the roof. Every time the wind would push against the house the doors would suck back into the room and creak. I secured them with the bolt we forgot to push in and headed back to my safety spot.

CRACK! Something else banged into the side of the house. BANG. Something on the roof. Each time it was loud against the howling, and I would jump up imagining all sorts of flying objects like in the Wizard of Oz. I put my fingers into my ears as I use to do when I was young to blot out various sounds and yelling voices. That helped, but I'd start to fall asleep and my arms would fall and BANG something would crash into the house, and I was up again. I would discuss things with Grandma who had tried to go to sleep, but had decided staying up with the lights on was better. Even without her hearing aids she could hear the wind and the banging. It went on and on. Time passed slowly. I shut my eyes and tried to work on my novel in my head. I put my fingers back in the ears and hummed to myself. I also caught myself rocking slowly in the bed as I use to do as a child along with the ear blocking. Funny, how we tend to revert back to childhood in times of stress. BANG!

Me: "What was that? Was that the tree?"
Tom: "What is going on? You two are loud. I need to get some sleep. I'm going in the other room."

He did. He got up and disappeared and within two seconds we could hear him snoring in the master bedroom, the room closest to the oak tree I was sure was going to rip out of the ground and fall on the house. I did not panic, figuring I could rescue him if it came to that. Plus, I got the double bed all to myself.

Around three o'clock or so I slept. It was a light sleep with a lot of tossing and turning. Each time I came to I would listen to the wind. It was still going. I woke up at six o'clock and peered outside my front door. The wind was still blowing, but Irma had left our area. The wind had blown the rain toward my house and it had seeped through the door soaking the towel I had placed there, and dirt covered my glass door making it difficult to see outside. Tom and I took the dog and ventured carefully outside. The neighbors were still locked inside behind their boarded windows. We looked around, let Elliot sniff, and then we went back inside to grab a few more hours of sleep. We made it.