Somewhere around four in the morning I noticed it was completely calm and still. The eye of the storm was passing over. A hurricane swirls around in an enormous circle with a calm eye in the center. So you end up getting wind and rain from all sides. Because of this, the wind blows down everything it can from one direction. The eye of the storm passes and then the wind blows down everything it can from the opposite direction. The horizontal rain will gust in where ordinary hard rains will never go.
The force and longevity of the Hurricane Ike was incredible. It seemed it would never end. From start to finish it lasted a good 14 hours. I can see how people and animals can panic in such conditions.
Most got little sleep that night. Saturday morning as the sun rose the storm was still in its fury. I was glad that I could see some of it in daylight, from the safety of my house, of course. The several large limbs that hit my roof could have easily killed someone. A hurricane is not nearly so bad in the daylight hours because, at least to some extent, you can see what’s happening. Since the storm was now blowing from behind the house, I could safely look out my front door and see the small pecan tree furiously blowing in the wind. Squirrels like to chew the bark around some of the limbs, and every limb where they had done so, broke in the wind.
Despite not boarding up my windows, not one was broken. A large limb from my neighbor’s tree hit the outside corner of my roof and did a little damage. But it was at the overhang and won’t make it leak inside. Saturday afternoon I assured the neighbors I wasn’t worried about the damage. “If I thought you did it on purpose, I’d be upset,” I joked. “But I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to do it.”
I finally decided to run to the car in between gusts. I was then able to see the willow oak was still standing. I drove around limbs and trees in the road. A couple of roads were completely blocked by trees. Some utility poles and lines were laying in the middle of Main Street (FM 2100). We have two full grown pine trees in the front of Northside. I was a little surprised to see them still standing. Most other trees at Northside were wind-worn but standing. One tree behind the church was down and another with a number of big limbs broken. The neighbor said the downed tree behind our church was in a line with other broken trees and it may have been a small tornado that passed through that way. Her pecan tree was twisted off about half way up. Our church steeple was still intact though rocking some in the wind. The building was not hurt and the Thompson family came through fine. Electricity had not gone off there until late in the night.
They did say the building got a little scary during the night and a number of strange sounds were heard. Years ago I remember Evangelist Dan Vestal saying a church building at night is the spookiest place in the world. Some churches used to have a “prophets room” for visiting preachers and evangelists to stay the night. Brother Vestal had spent his share of nights in them. I’m sure it’s even worse in a hurricane.
The winds finally pretty well died down about 10 am Saturday, September 13, 2008.
Yards were full of debris, fallen trees and limbs. My cell phone would not work. The land line phone at the church continued to work. If you have a land line phone, make sure you have one phone that plugs directly into the phone jack. Remember a cordless land line phone will not work at all without electricity.
All day Saturday and now the second night without electricity. You are now in a world of the “haves” and the “have nots.” The “haves” have a generator. The only news from the outside world was a battery powered radio. It’s frustrating as heck to have people a world away knowing more about our situation than we do. But they can get TV and internet reception and we can’t.
The radio newscasters would assure us that we could get the additional information we needed by going to their website. How do you do that with no electricity? We had no water at the church since we are on a water well and are dependant on electricity to run it. Thankfully, I had water at home. You take a shower, dry off, and then immediately start sweating again. Again thankfully, the weather has been cooler than usual.
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-David R. Brumbelow, Highlands, Texas. September 14, AD 2008
