Tales from the Hurricane

Here are a few excerpts from Stephen's little story about the hurricane. As much as I would want to say that this sounds exaggerated, it's really not!

My brother in law tells me that Lufkin’s Wal -Mart had to be closed due to a fight over gas and water.

Once I got there and exchanged pleasantries with Stacey’s relatives from the Port Arthur/Beaumont areas, a bad sign of things to come started with a puff of smoke. Apparently, the people who live across the street from my father-in-law had a kid who was left home alone. The kid was probably 12-14 years old, unsupervised, and he thought he would be smart and burn a trash pile before the storm hit. Bad!!! One, there was a burn ban in place due to the area being over 10” below normal on rain. Two, the winds from the outer bands had started picking up and we were having swirling winds with 20+ mph gusts. So, we have a fire on our hands and it’s on the verge of getting out of control and headed towards my in-laws’ house. So, all available males go put to try to control the fire. The fire department comes and quickly puts the fire out. So we think. About 3 hours later, it re-ignites in a pine thicket and we get to do this all over again. We watch stories on the news of robbing/looting of stores by evacuees from Beaumont/Port Arthur, so we dare not risk getting onto the roads with these desperate people.

So, around 9:30AM, the worst part of the storm begins. The roof on the deck rattles and looks like it will come off at anytime, but it doesn’t fail. Once again, proving my father in law’s boasts that “Aww, this porch will withstand a hurricane.” I ran to the shed to get ice and rock and roll and little while getting the ice out of the deep freeze. 100’ tall trees are no longer upright, but at 45-60 degree sways. Falling pine cones become missiles shooting across the yard and smaller limbs and branches begin breaking. Soon afterward, trees on each end of the property fall while the sheets of rain continue to fall sideways. This fun lasts for about 2-2.5 hours as my father in law returns home.