So, hurricane season is now officially upon us. Not that I am excited or anything like that, but, truth be known, I do like a tropical storm.
Back in 2005, the year of Katrina, the Gulf was very active when it came to tropical storms and/or hurricanes. That summer my little family was enjoying a week in a little beach house, perched high up on stilts right out on the beach in Fort Morgan, Alabama, when Hurricane Cindy and Hurricane Dennis came knocking in the same week.
The newspaper account in the Mobile Register referred to it as a screaming wind. Wife Danny said at the time that was indeed the word she was looking for. I tend to agree. The only thing I’m still not quite sure of is if a screaming wind is one that sounds like a scream, or one that makes a person scream. The wind I’m referring to, I believe, was capable of doing both.
For five years, I think, we had been going to the same little seafoam green house, some 250 feet from the Gulf, very near the end of the peninsula. The year prior, after hurricane Ivan, we feared our little piece of paradise might be gone, but the little house survived, and by January we had planned our Fourth of July vacation.
According to my column the week after we returned home, everything seemed to be going according to plan. We had packed the car on the Friday night before the Fourth and pulled out almost on time a little after 7:00 Saturday morning. Our route took us to Dauphine Island south of Mobile and then across the bay on the ferry to avoid holiday traffic.
Our car was the last of about 30 to be packed like sardines onto the ferry. A minute longer on the ride down and there would have been another hour-and-a-half wait, but we made it on board and about 30 minutes later were rolling up to the beach house.
Hurricane Ivan had indeed changed the looks of a few things from 2004 and the years before. There were no sand dunes at all and every house on the beach had new steps up to the deck. Some had new roofs and a few no longer existed. Ours was just fine.
We piddled around and unloaded tons of supplies and by night fall had everything in its proper place. Sunday morning arrived and the beach was beautiful. My parents joined us about noon with ribs for the grill and Monday morning a bright beautiful Fourth of July dawned. A pristine day in the sun was capped with spectacular fireworks displays for miles and miles along the white sand beaches that night. What a beautiful holiday!
By Tuesday tropical storm Cindy was churning in the Gulf and things were not looking quite as cheery. It was overcast most of the day and that evening, we opted to haul all the stuff we usually leave on the beach throughout the week — tent, umbrellas, chairs, kayaks, etc., etc., etc. — back up to the house and started battening down the hatches for what was expected to only be a thunderstorm or two.
It was two alright, 2:00 a.m. when the screaming winds started screaming. And they didn’t let up for some six hours. The little house on its stilts started vibrating and rain and sand blew parallel to the beach and hard against the wall of windows, and right in through the latches at times.
Cindy was scary by the time she arrived in our backyard as a category one hurricane! Danny was terrified, daughter Rachel-Johanna thought she was going to die or at the very least throw up, my parents were not really sure what to do and I was thinking there ain’t a whole hell of a lot we can do at all at this point. So I went outside to evaluate the situation.
It was quite breezy with sustained winds of 35 to 40 miles per hour and gusts up to 70 as she approached, and the ocean, which normally was that 250 feet from the steps of the deck was churning about 100 feet away. The sand and rain bit hard into my face and I had to grip the deck rail to keep from falling.
Cindy kept screaming and screaming and screaming and inside that little house the storm sounded ten times worse than it did on the outside. So I coaxed the throwing-up-dying girl and her terrified mom and the grandparents out to see that although things were no longer pristine, conditions were not quite as bad as we thought. It was a pretty tough sell.
By daybreak the wind was still screaming, and the sand and rain still stinging, and the 100 feet left of the beach was no more. Waves were beginning to break beneath the house where those kayaks and other things from the beach had been battened down. Rachel-Johanna and I braved the storm and moved what we could before quickly retreating back inside.
Then almost as quickly as she came she left. The water began to recede, the wind changed directions and started peeling away layer after layer of sand from the newly formed shoreline.
I read somewhere that the beach, following a tropical storm, is at its best and that was the case on that Thursday. Any trash that might have remained from the holiday fireworks was gone and the water, that the night before was boiling and brown with foam, had turned crystal clear.
The sky was blue and we played in the surf and rode tall white waves from far out in the ocean all the way up onto the shore. The family was no longer sick, nor terrified, and even the dog came out to play for a while.
There were a few roof tops tattered, and lots of beach tents and flag poles gone forever, but for the most part our spirits and those of our neighbors were high, having braved a difficult night, and also by then, knowing another storm was on its way.
Unfortunately forecasters didn’t think Dennis would be as kind as Cindy and by Thursday evening mandatory evacuations were underway. We were told we had to leave by 11:00 a.m. on Friday and our vacation had ended, shortened by a day.
Now, 20 years later we still go to Fort Morgan for a week every summer. The little seafoam green house has been gone for years as well as the pink one next door. Our favorite house of all time, a tiny little Mid Century Modern number, was leveled in 2020 by Hurricane Sally.
The sight of that kind of made us reflect back on our trip in 2005 and what could of happened then. Danny says she will never ride out another one and I think I have to agree.
But, at the very same time, and every year when hurricane season rolls around, I think about Hurricane Cindy. I still think riding her out was kind of fun, but then I remember the terrified look in my family’s eyes. I especially think about that little girl of mine holed up in the bathroom. I remember the sand blistering my skin and the raging sea raging right up under the house. And, I remember the wind. The screaming wind!
I do love a tropical storm. A hurricane, however, no matter how small I might choose to do without. One is enough for us, yes, one is enough for us.
