Last night a major storm hit our little town. Thunderstorms are common through out the summer but this one was huge. Power poles were knocked down, trees were uprooted, and the police are advising no one enter the trail park. Apparently multiple trailers were knocked off thier foundation and one was actually picked up by the wind and dropped on top of another one.
The damage at our house seems minor in comparison to that. Our roof is leaking, some of the stucco was knocked off the outer walls, and nine windows were shattered by the baseball sized hail. We had a rough time sleeping last night, our bed was covered in broken glass and hail during the storm. We ended up pulling our old mattress out of the basement and sleeping in the living room (I knew there was a reason I didn't throw it away, I was not just being lazy, as Jessy keeps telling me)
We lost power, cable, and internet for most of the night. But all our services are back up and know I am starting to think about our reaction to the storm itself. I think remembering might help me when/if I ever write a disaster story. So I am going to write down what happened so that I can remember.
About 6:00pm I looked out the window to see the strangest rain storm I have ever seen in Nebraska. We get hard rain a lot, the kind that hurts you if it hits you, but this was different. There was the hard rain and a fine mist, like you see in the tropical storms on tv.
I called Jessy over to see it. She got to the door just as the first baseball sized hail stone smashed into our sidewalk. We both rushed to the living room, our house is old and to go into the basement you have to go outside and that wasn't an option. Jessy grabbed her cell phone off the table. Our living room only has one window and that one is fairly well protected by trees.
Her nurturing instinct took over and she started trying to calm our dogs down. I suddenly felt very protective. I yanked the couch away from the wall. And told Jessy and the dogs to get into the closet. It is a big closet and the only thing in it is our Christmas decorations.
I ushered them into the closet just as the first hail stone shattered the living room window. I closed the door behind us and began trying to calm our dogs. Tucker whimpered the whole time incredbly frightened. Snags our other dog, was fine. He has an incredible faith in me and is never scared of anything as long as I am around.
Jessy called her dad, who lives 30 miles away and told him a storm was coming. Then we sat in the dark(the power went out) until the storm passed.
We locked the dogs in the dinning room, so that they wouldn't step in glass, as we surveyd the damage. After we saw all the broken windows my guy genes kicked in and I had to fix it. I began cleaning up. Jessy called her dad (he lost power, but the had no damage, the hail was only pea sized by the time it made it his house) and then her mom in California, and the insurane company and her brother in Portland, then she called her parents back.
These very different male/female reactions are very interesting to me. When I have more time I am going to analyze the motivations a little more. But for now I have to go work.
Men and women simply life in different worlds (my wife agrees but insists my world is retarded). When Hurricane Ike came through I wanted to send the family north to College Station while I remained behind with my camcorder and laptop to record impressions for future use in writing.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, my wife (the enemy of fun) wouldn't have it and I ended up leaving too.
But I know what you mean about writing from different gender perspectives. It's a useful art.