Erin, Part Three

By Rick LaClaire

Article Category: Rick LaClaire

In the summer of my eighth year I had the mumps.

What misery.

To miss school due to a virus was a blessing; to miss a golden week of summer, pure hell. I laid in bed, shivering with fever, left side of my face swollen like a goiter, while my friends and siblings frolicked in the sun–seemingly beneath my bedroom window. After a week I was allowed (gradually) to rejoin my peers in summer hijinks. The sprinkler never sprinkled so sweetly. Cicadas never sang louder and hot dogs were never more succulent than after that incarceration. Then, one week later, while crunching a pickle at a neighborhood clambake, I discovered I was in relapse. This time the right side of my face, bulging like a beer gut. Back to bed, back to misery, unexpected and sicker than before. So, too, ran the course of a storm called Erin, in the summer of my forty-first year, 1995.

A sleepless night, bawling child and backed-up septic system are great motivators. We were grateful to our old friends Wayne and Terry for sheltering us during the tempest, but it was clear our welcome would soon wear thin. And as a half-liter of bourbon does a hangover make, another kind of hangover was impending: that malaise and suspension of life only a hurricane can deliver. Power was out. Many roads were closed, including the bridges to beachside. Nothing to do but sit, sweat and wait for the all-clear. I was worried about my home. We needed showers and a nap.

Fortunately, the phones were still working and power still on in some blocks of Melbourne. Soon we’d located an open motel near I-95. We bade adieu and thanks and headed for the Days Inn. The cat was good where she was, or so I thought, and I would pick her up on the return trip. At that point, the baby needed changing, our bowels needed emptying and we were all cranky for lack of sleep.

The room was dry, air-conditioned and the toilets flushed. Unfortunately, we were not the only refugees. The hotel was packed. Above us, an entire floor was occupied by a traveling all-star youth basketball team. As we showered, relieved ourselves and attempted to nap, we were serenaded by the ubiquitous boink boink of bouncing basketballs on cement floors. They too were bored and awaiting the all-clear.

With the TV on for news, my wife and I laid our baby boy between us. The last thing I saw was my son raise his head and smile, and we all drifted into oblivion. For about three hours…

I awoke to thunder in the mid-afternoon. Huh? I thought this was over. Thunder and that continuous boink boink, now louder than ever, right outside my door. Angrily, I whipped open the door and told them to stop. My wife and daughter were shocked at my choice of words, but as I defended myself, the good news flashed across the screen that the causeways were now open. All admonishment ceased and we prepared to head for the beach.

Oddly, it was raining again. The sky was black, drops huge. We could leave? In this? As we packed, another reality dawned: the floor was wet. In fact, we were flooding.

“Lets get out of here,” I commanded.

We dashed across the parking lot. It was a lake; water ankle-deep. I told my wife to take the kids and just go. I would settle the bill and follow. I had never seen rain like this. “Don’t stop for anything,” I said.  “See you beachside.”

The tab was paid with wet twenties. It was a good thing I had cash. Though they’d had power all through the hurricane, it failed suddenly in the rain. I was glad to leave. The lobby was dampening.

Water was near the floorboards as I sloshed into my Pontiac. Traffic on New Haven was thick, all headed east. Stoplights were in blink mode as I muscled into the queue. Visibility was nil.

By now, water was a foot deep in the road. Could it rain this hard for long? Would my cheapo car stall? Then I remembered the cat. Damn! I’d have to make a side trip back to Wayne and Terry’s. Although the distance was short to their street (about a half-mile), going was slow at best. I couldn’t see the car in front of me; I merely followed its wake. When I pulled on to our hosts’ untraveled side street, all was water: the road, the yards, the very air. All I could think of was that canal. I didn’t want to wind up there. There was no telling where it was. There was no telling where the road was!

Water poured in when I opened the car door in front of Wayne and Terry’s. I dared not shut off the motor for fear it wouldn’t re-start. My exhaust pipe was underwater, bubbling smoke. I waded to the house.

There were Wayne, Terry and Bob… Still playing poker… Chins on the table… They had moved the table to the living room and surrounded it with towels to keep the water away.

“I came for the cat,” I said. All I got was a weak smile. I felt bad for them. This would be a mess to clean up. Then I remembered that I had a home, too. It could be in worse shape than this. I hurried about my business.

The water in the yard was thigh-deep, cold and black. The rain still poured. I struggled with the garage door hearing Wayne in my head: “Don’t let the door fly off!” Maybe this was what you get for pissing in the eye of Erin.

The water inside was deep as the yard. And there was the cat. Floating on a box. Growling. With every hair erect. No time for introductions. I just grabbed the animal and felt her claws sink into my skin. I would wear her to the car, which surprisingly, was still running. Then came the hardest of all maneuvers: I had to turn around. Where was the driveway? Where was the road? Most importantly, where was the canal?  Water was ankle-deep in the car. The cat howled. I took a gamble and slowly inched my way through a k-turn. My luck held. Soon I was muscling my way back onto New Haven.

Myriad thoughts raced. Would my wife make it? The kids — they must be nuts with fear. What if this car stalls? There were flooded vehicles all over what was apparently the shoulder. Should I help? If I stopped, would I ever go again?

At Minton I hit what must have been a ditch. Water flooded over the hood and up the windshield. The engine shuddered. I pressed on. Then at Dairy Road, a forlorn woman stood by her drowned vehicle and waved frantically. I thought about stopping but what could I do? I had a wife and two kids out there somewhere!

The worst was by the golf course. Crane Creek was over the road. Again, water came up the windshield. The engine shuddered. I gassed it and pressed on. Finally, across Babcock. Then, like a faucet, the rain stopped. Just like that. I sailed across the causeway, cracking the car door to let the water out.

The first thing I wanted to see when I pulled in was my wife’s car. It was not there. Panic jolted my spine. I would turn around, go back and look for them. I let the cat out and backed into the street. Facing west, I saw them. My daughter looked drained. My wife smiled. We’d made it.

The house was still there.  he roof held. Suddenly, my neighbor Del walked from around back. “You’ve got some damage,” he said. “Brace yourself.”

Yes, there was damage. My attached screen room was, well…not fully attached. It had dislodged at the base and flipped up onto the garage roof — as one piece, hinged at the eave. It apparently flailed there for some time, tearing hell out of the garage roof and overhang. But the house was dry. So was the yard. The afterstorm never hit here.

My neighbors’ backyards had similar damage: torn-up screen rooms, exploded pool enclosures. Those who “rode it out” claimed they’d heard a tornado.

According to later statistics, the strongest winds passed through Melbourne Beach. Gusts of near 110 mph. This was unofficial though, measured by hand-held anemometer.

The “afterstorm”? It was an intense rainband, flung wide at sea, undetected until it hit. Supposedly Erin dropped 17 inches of rain in Brevard; twelve in the 45-minute afterstorm.

As I said in the first installment, there are images of Erin which still haunt me.

The blue glow… My cat floating on a box… Water over the windshield… That poor woman at Dairy and New Haven… Bone-dry land at the beach… An empty Pepsi can unmoved on a table in what used to be our screen room… And over a hundred dollars in dimes, nickels and quarters, gushing from my Crown Royal poker bag. Some storms do have a silver lining — literally!

Tell your grandkids.