19 September 2003

Lady Luck

Big Pink surrendered to the storm before it even got here, literally without firing a shot in self-defense. I don’t know if it was a tree somewhere else or what. But right around four in the afternoon the lights flickered and then came back, flickered once more and then died for the rest of the storm. And then the residents of our big brick building hunkered down to meet Hurricane Isabel in her march toward Lake Erie. But we were lucky. We did not get hit head-on. The path of Isabel took her between us and Richmond.

Not everyone was so lucky. Five are dead, millions were without power. Old Town Alexandria was six feet underwater and there are 900 traffic signals malfunctioning this morning. I-395 is shut down in the District. But Big Pink is standing.

Considering that the winds and rain had not yet even started in earnest, the loss of power so early in the game did not bode well. I had walked home from the office in the early afternoon, after the first band of rain came through, spattering the windows with droplets. The ADP people came around and told us to shut the blinds and bring the power-strips up off the floor incase the windows got smashed. The Federal Government- our sacred Customer- had already surrendered to the storm, before it even came ashore. In retrospect, it was a little forward-leaning. Things did not get bad until deep in the afternoon. But it was still and dark gray and the change in pressure made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It just would not get started. Isabel was keeping her own counsel and making her own mind up.

I was pounding on my laptop when the lights went out. I shut it down and went out to the balcony to see what might have caused it. Across the eight-lane highway the trees were only beginning their dance when the power blew. We could have had most of a workday for the government, or at least we could have if people were able to live this close in. But the workforce is scattered from Pax River to Gettysburg, and after the debacles we have had in the capital with snow and travel, it is better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. But it is always better to be lucky.

It was still light, so I was able to marshal my batteries and candles and make sure the battery radio and CD player were good to go. I placed the candles in the kitchen and made sure the gas was still on, even if the automatic pilot is out. I would not go hungry, though I could tell that the ice situation was going to get critical. I should have filled a cooler, I thought. The other problem was the phone.

Remember when the phone was the thing that always worked? It was powered by the current to activate the dial tone. Today, our cordless universe requires separate power and the phone dies with the power. The cell phone would only work for so long, and if I ran it down, I would have to go to the parking lot in the gale and huddle in the car to try to recharge it. So, ice and phone were two issues to carry away for the survival kit, and Big Pink was prone to power failure, since the main circuit boards were designed before the explosion of personal electronic contraptions that manage our 21st century lives. And both were now irrelevant. Big Pink was now mute to the storm, just a series of stacked pastel brick boxes containing the owners and renters, hoping to keep the storm out of their darkness.

I opened up one of the packs of AA-size batteries and loaded the little radio and CD player with fresh power. Outside the rain had finally begun to roar in. It pooled down on the highway and flooded uphill with the force of the wind. The trees across the road danced wildly in the rising gale. I took station on the balcony as though it were the bridge of a ship. The radio informed me that the hurricane was here, and the storm surge up the Potomac was producing flooding in Old Town. Everything else I could see for myself. I switched the earphones from the radio to the CD player and listened to music. David Byrne and Talking Heads provided a driving beat to the rising might of Isabel.

"The sound of gunfire.

Off in the distance,

I’m getting used to it, now.

High on a hillside,

Trucks are loading,

Packed up and ready to go…."

The rain flew sideways and the trees around me swung wildly. If I flapped my arms just right I thought I might be able to fly away, right then and there. The door to the balcony was gripped in Isabel’s moist sharp fingernails and hurled open with such force that the top hinge bent and the door would not close properly. I hung out there on the bridge as long as I could, until I was soaked and the wind’s roar was deafening.

I slammed the door as hard as I could to force it into the frame and preclude it flying away altogether. The air in the little apartment was still and oppressive but I could not open a window for fear that Isabel would take it in her wrath. I heated something vaguely familiar from the refrigerator and ate it in the glow of the candlelight. The wind howled outside.

Isabel is a woman’s name, and we thankfully have left the old convention of naming them exclusively for women behind. Men and women should have equal opportunities for approbation on the weather front. But I think there are genders to storms. The weather we have had from the west this season has been unquestionably male. They have been spectacular displays of aerial violence, lightning shooting across the sky and vast booming of thunder. Dramatic displays of raw power that sweep all before them. Then gone, like an army passing through, leaving behind a startled peace and the smell of ozone. Aside from her name, this storm built in a way that was akin to the raw energy of Woman writ large. Vast in scope, focused in her intent. Sweeping with stately drama and incrementally rising passion she came, and when I felt dizzy and drained, sated by her raw energy she went on and on through the night.

I surrendered to her early and slept hard. I awoke in the darkness. The clock by the bed was dead and I stumbled across the furniture from the balcony to the kitchen and used the flashlight to check one of the battery-driven clocks. It was three-fifty and the wind had abated a bit but it was still rising to powerful gusts. The refrigerator was still dark and the juice bottle I pulled from it was only moderately cold. If the power did not come back on soon I would have to throw everything in it away. I went back to bed and heard Isabel call my name, beckoning me back outside. I may have dropped off or I may have imagined her arms around me.

At five-thirty the lights came back on, recalling the afternoon before. I remembered how it had been then, before the passion. I turned on the BBC and listened to the account of our hurricane from London and tried to power up the computer. I made coffee and was sipping it as I heard that Fairfax County had lost power to all three of the water plants and residents were advised to boil all drinking water. I grimaced and hoped that the brewing had killed whatever was in it, or that Arlington County had kept some power through the night. Cable was still out, many were still in the dark. The Government was closed again, this time for remediation.

The wind still rose outside, sometimes approaching a fresh gale. But the passion was gone from it. Isabel had moved on and thrown herself onto the mountains to the northwest. For us now it was past, and the capital would rise to start the cleanup. If storms can have genders, I suppose luck can, too. We were very lucky in our encounter with Lady Isabel. Though she had her way with us, she was not overly cruel. She has gone her way, no longer interested in sporting with us. We can get back to business here and stop worrying about what can happen in the night.

They say it will be in the upper seventies today, and humid. Not unlike a free trip to the tropics. It's a lucky day.