May 31, 2013 (Friday)
“Hurricanes are dangerous things, and they’re no fun to go through”–Bernard Goldberg
Today we come to the end of May. Tomorrow marks the beginning of “Hurricane Season.” I love it when it’s NOT hurricane season.
Growing up in Houston, I remember one in 1941 and another in 1943. At least I think those were the years. Being 50 miles inland, I recall no evacuations. I’ve stayed through storms, and I’ve run from them. Usually not a lot of fun either way.
When I was in Houston in 2005 and Rita followed on the heels of Katrina, everyone was in a panic and the roads filled with cars running out of gas, breaking down, and generally hauling people who were very miserable, trapped on the highways. I decided to stay put in my elderly garage apartment. It was, after all, my Birthday. My kids kept asking me to get somewhere other than where I was, so I finally gave in as the hurricane moved closer and went to The Woodlands to spend the night with Dianna and Mark and their family. I-45 from Houston to Dianna’s house was totally abandoned. I had the road to myself. The shoulders were littered with cars that could make it no farther and with litter from snacks of all kinds. The multitudes had moved on. The main part of the storm moved through East Texas and east of The Woodlands, although the wind blew throughout the night. (It blew hard enough back in Houston to cause my next door neighbor to start attending church).
When the next storm, Ike, came into Houston through Galveston in 2008, I was living in another house next to the garage apartment, and apparently I thought it was a safer house because I stayed in it as the hurricane tried its best to blow it down. I felt like one of the “Three Little Pigs” with the wolf outside doing his best to fulfill his threats. After several days without electricity afterwards, I came back to Rockport where the power was still on, to await the restoration of power in Houston.
So, here we are again. It’s been so long since a real bad hurricane has hit Rockport that our time just may be here. Hope not. In 1964 when we moved to Rockport, people were still talking about the 1919 storm that hit this area; many were killed. Hurricane Carla in 1961 was still on their mind, too. Beulah came with tornadoes and floods in 1967. In 1970 we stayed here through Celia‘s onslaught–I fussed at myself the whole time, because by not evacuating I had endangered my family. It was a bad one–some said the wind gusted to 200 mph in the vicinity of the old Carbon Black plant. In 1980 we ran from Allen–took seven hours to get to San Antonio. As I said, not much fun either way. In 1988, we decided to stay through Gilbert, the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin, predicted to follow the Texas coast northward from the Valley, but it decided to go to Mexico instead after it weakened to a Category 3. Please withhold your comments about how the Lord takes care of fools and..
Devotional Thought: “When the storms of life are raging, stand by me. When the storms of life are raging, stand by me. When the world is tossing me like a ship upon the sea, Thou who rulest wind and water, stand by me.” (Good old song).