WHERE ARE WE

WHERE ARE WE

… did I take a wrong turn …

The street was not familiar. Oh heck! Forget the street! The town looked foreign to me. We’d only been gone two days. We were so sure we took the correct route, and yet, what we saw was nothing like what we remembered. Where were the lush palm trees? The tall and fragrant cedar trees? The beautiful magnolias? The once-beautiful green grass was now littered with all sorts of debris. There were no street signs to indicate where we were.

After checking our GPS map, we were assured that we were on the road heading home.

We passed what appeared to be an old ramshackle shack. The roof was almost completely torn off. The windows were broken. The garage door was pushed in and dented. The front door was ripped off the hinges and lying on its side on the front steps of what might have been someone’s home.

I turned to my husband and said, “Hon, isn’t that the house where Jim and Barbara live?” He slowed our car and stared at the dilapidated structure. “It sure looks like it but what the heck happened?”

He stopped the car, and we eased our way out. Being careful of every step, we wandered around the area.

Rich tapped my shoulder, “Look, isn’t that where Pete used to live?” I looked at the house, or what used to be a house and said, “Yeah, I think so. I know he sold his house to Dennis a few months ago and moved into a condo but if this is his former residence, I can guarantee that he didn’t sell it in this condition.”

“Let’s go,” he prompted. “We need to make our way through all this destruction and find our street. If this is, indeed, our neighborhood, what will we find if and when we find our street?”

We looked at the road ahead and my husband wondered loudly, “I’m thinking we’ll never get through this road. Look at all the debris!”

“Yeah, and it’s already beginning to get dark,” I said. “Do you think you can safely back up without running over something? I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to be driving around when the sun completely sets.”

Rich pointed out the window to my right. “Look, the power lines are down. That means no electricity. No street lights. We’ll never see what’s in the road.”

I volunteered my services. “How about if I get out, walk behind the car and direct you – in case there’s something in the road I can’t move?”

“Good idea. You don’t mind? What if there’s a wild animal?”

“Just make sure the back door isn’t locked. I’ll be fine.”

Turing on the GPS again, he requested the route for our home. It didn’t take long before we came upon another street that was as impassable as the first. Then, another, until we finally found a road that we felt was safe.

“Oh my God, Rich. It looks as though the entire town was decimated by a bomb!” I sat in wonder, confusion, and fear just wondering how all this happened in the span of forty-eight hours.

What should have taken us a half-hour once we were off the highway, was now taking us, so far, almost ninety minutes.

Street after street was deserted and destroyed.

I looked at my husband and asked, “Did the storm really do this much damage?”

“It would seem so but let’s be sure. I’m going to drive though town before we attempt to find out street.”

Well, that was a big bust! The entire town was taped off with the police caution tape due to the flooding the storm produced. Downtown was closed! We parked our car outside the caution perimeter, which was one block away from the rising water, which we estimated to be about two feet and RISING!

My husband’s worried eyes found mine and he said, “We better get the heck out of here before that water comes this way.”

Making a U-turn, we drove away from town and towards our home. It was like driving through an obstacle course. Trees were knocked down completely. Others were missing many branches. Almost all the palm trees were missing their beautiful fronds. House after house had significant damage.

In the dark, we finally found our street which, like the others, was in total darkness.

Driving slowly and cautiously, we found our house. While it was still standing, we could see that the shutters were dented, a few were ripped off the house. Many of the roof tiles were gone, meaning we might have a partial flood inside. We shimmied out of the car and cleared off as much of the driveway as necessary. After making our way inside, we quickly assessed the damage. At least, the house wasn’t flooded, but much of the furniture was pushed askew by the raging wind that slithered through the cracks in the shutters. Two windows were broken which allowed the wind inside.

We made our way to the garage and manually lifted the door to bring the car in.

In the garage, using the little mag lights we kept in the car, we hunted down the larger flashlights and walked back inside to go from room to room.

My husband suggested we check our bedroom, and if it’s clear, then we should go to bed. “After all, we can’t do anything in the dark. Tomorrow’s another day. We’ll clean, assess, and, if your phone is working, call the insurance company. Oh, by the way, you’d better call the kids and tell them we made it back. I know they’ll be worried.”