Helene, Part 3: Wind & Waterspouts
Tornado shelters are underground. Absent a shelter or a basement, you’re supposed to take cover on the lowest floor of your house, in an interior room, preferably the bathroom with its plumbing. I live in a house built for storm surges, not tornadoes. My first floor is ten feet off the ground. I have an open floor plan with no interior rooms.
When the first siren blared, signaling the promised tornadoes on Helene’s dirty side, I didn’t hurry downstairs. I ran upstairs to my bedroom. I hadn’t dressed after my shower and wanted to be wearing more than just a skimpy tank dress before either going outside to the under-stairs storage closet or ending up outside when my house blew away. Cara followed close at my heels.
Dressed, I listened to the television meteorologist describe the tornado’s location and path. To my relief, it seemed to be a couple miles south and heading away. But when Debra, my neighbor, invited me via text to join her in her sturdy, ground-level garage, I leashed Cara and ventured across the lane. We sat with her and her tiny dog on her golf cart. Even though I had thought I was safe at home, it felt better to have company. She told me to make sure I got under the golf cart’s roof if I heard things “flying around out there.”
Nothing flew around. The warning expired and we returned home, only to hear the siren again a few minutes later. From the TV meteorologist’s description, this one seemed bigger and possibly closer. (I learned later it was witnessed less than a mile away.) Cara ran to me expectantly, ready to be leashed and repeat the adventure. My newly nervous tummy led me to the bathroom before returning to Debra’s garage for another 25 minutes or so. Sustained winds were still unremarkable when we returned home.
The second siren was the last for Tybee, but I was too wired to focus on anything other than the now-continuous reporting. If I poured a beer or glass of wine, it was only one and didn’t help me relax. It seemed I should keep my wits about me. Tornado warnings continued for hours in and around Savannah and the nearby low country of South Carolina. After landfall, the local weatherman quickly noted the storm tracking through Georgia well to the east of the projected path. The wind picked up. Savannah and Tybee saw 70-75 mph gusts instead of the 45 mph ones that had been predicted. A 100-mph gust was recorded 120 miles away. At 3 am, power and cell service both went out. I was surprised it took so long.
With nothing else to do, I went upstairs to lay on my bed in the dark. I never sleep well when it’s windy. I turned up the music on my battery-powered radio, to help drown out the sound of the wind. Weather alerts were intermittent, not continuous as they had been on TV. Three times, I felt the house shake. I wondered whether some sounds were tree limbs hitting the house.
I may have finally dozed around 4:30 am. By 7 am, the wind had sufficiently subsided that we met the rest of the crew at the dog park to compare notes. None of us had power and some of us had no cell service. No one had significant damage. Afterward, I picked up one armload of twigs and branches, along with a broken glass ornament that had blown off my deck. “Life’s at ease with an ocean breeze,” it had formerly read.
By 11 am the sun was shining. I rode my bike the length of the island. Generators hummed and chainsaws buzzed. I passed one public works crew apparently dealing with a large downed tree, but everything else I saw was minor compared to what I had seen after Hurricane Matthew. On the beach, surf was still high and I could see that high tide had reached the dunes. Picturesque beach photos don’t reveal the story of the preceding night.
My power remained out for 35 hours, and during that time I had little or no reliable cell service. Cut off from communication, in my “Tybee bubble,” I was unable to answer texts from friends checking in to see how I fared, and I was unaware of the unimaginable havoc wreaked elsewhere.