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I’m writing this as the hurricane is presently passing by, and I have now just gone through my 4th pair of soggy wet clothes (2 in prepping the campus, and 2 simply as an observer as this is a rare chance to see mother nature in all her fury. “Sandy” is a strong category 2 hurricane with sustained winds in the 90-110 mph with gusts recorded up to 150.
Emily was the first to spot this storm on the radar, and she called it immediately, “we’re going to have school canceled!” But she and I both didn’t count on this turning into a major hurricane. The unstable weather has passed on from last month and October was showing us cooler temperatures. I therefore figured that we’d be looking at a tropical storm with some minor gusts. I didn’t even plan on boarding up the school. The elder staff here at Windermere agreed with that observation.
Then last night the power was flickering on and off and I awoke at 3am to see that this minor storm was now a category 2 hurricane after is passed Cuba. Meteorologists predicted that it was only going to intensify as it hit the warm Bahamian waters, and now the wind is howling outside making the rain blisteringly intense.
Unable to sleep and anxious about the state in which the campus was left, I worked straight into the morning putting up shutters and boarding up windows. With a flashlight in one hand a drill in the other it was a balancing act to hang those shutters with the wind gusting all around.
Then the storm began to rage. The first thing I noticed was Dale’s roof beginning to give up shingles. Because we have the elastomeric coating over them, if 1 shingle goes the rest follow. So we quickly erected a ladder and I hammered the shingles back in place before the roof had a chance to peel. However, I found it a challenge to hit the head of a nail while your hammer is blown about standing on a ladder two stories in a hurricane! (I totally smashed my thumb… full on swings)
Dale, Usba, and myself had a little fun with the earlier downdrafts before the eye wall reached us. We tried flying a kite (it got tore up), we tried parasailing (basically seeing if you could lean back with a sheet of wood while the wind held you up), we even found a broken fan and tried to experiment with wind speeds by marking one of the blades and videotaping its RPM (however it was only a blur).
The campus is presently taking quite a beating. I’ll have another article in time concerning the aftermath and clean up as well as any needs we might have. But I can report already that we’ve lost 5 of our 9 trash barrels, 4 whirlybirds, 3 windows, 2 roof corners shingles, and 1 tallest palm tree as it crashed just beside our house… which is presently shaking… literally shaking in the gusts.
[with each gust, your body kind-of freezes like you’re prepping for a collision – your raise your shoulders like something is about to fall on your head, brace your eyes upward, and your senses sharpen, like you hear every little drop of rain pounding against the walls]
I must say… our last hurricane was a category 3 (approaching 4) and it sounded terrifying, but it hit in the dark of early morning. This storm has given us the ability to see the carnage, but the dark of night is now upon us and the ominous thundering of bands of wind are sweeping over the campus, each with the haunting unknown of what terror it is unleashing. I’m serious, this is quite a storm!
Additionally when Irene hit us last year, we barricaded ourselves in 1 room for better or worse, now we’ve got freedom to roam the house and with each concussive blast of wind it sounds like the paint is being torn off the side of the house. I think it was better when you didn’t even hear what might or might not be happening.
The most frightening part of a hurricane is definitely your imagination, that is until you see what the raw unyielding power of the wind can do. Its the difference between fear of the mind and fear of respect. We, however, fear the Lord: the ruler of the wind and the sea, and thus in the midst of the storm we can be still and know that He is God.