“Thanks,” Clint said, and then walked out the door to his car.
He sat in the car and looked out his window at the amount of water standing in the parking lot. Leaning over the steering wheel, Clint looked through the sheet of water on the windshield trying to see the mountain peaks around him, peaks that were hiding in the cover of low hanging clouds. He tried to visualize the sheer volume of water that could funnel down those mountains if it kept raining like this. A loud clap of thunder shattered his concentration. He put the car in gear and started south on 441, heading for home and out of Rabun County. And heading right into the direction of the approaching storm.
• • •
Blake stared out the sliding glass door, barely able to see anything as the water pelted the glass and formed a thick, foggy sheet. The sky brightened with a terrific burst of light, followed almost instantly by a thunderous crash. Instinct thrust his right hand to shield his eyes as the lightning struck something close by. A series of pops rattled through the house as the television snapped off. All electric lights were snuffed out except for two small emergency lights that were plugged into outlets that came on when the power was out.
“Wow, did you see that?” Blake said.
The girls screamed and jumped into Angelica’s lap, knocking the Connect 4 game on its side, spilling its pieces. “It’s okay, girls,” Angelica said as she pulled them closer. “Just nature throwing a little party.”
Blake looked over at her. Most women—hell most men for that matter—would be scared out of their wits in these conditions, but Angelica seemed calm, at ease. As if she had long ago surrendered herself to nature, to God, and was now going through life as if watching a movie. Watching it happen and enjoying most parts, tensing sometimes at the scary parts. But this part, this torrential rain and lightning—this part didn’t seem to scare her.
Angelica got up and walked to the closet. She pulled out two kerosene lanterns and lit them with a match from a kitchen drawer, adjusting the wick to get the light the way she wanted before placing one light on the kitchen bar. She took the other light with her to the living room. The girls’ rosy cheeks glowed in the light as the flame entranced them the way only fire can hypnotize a child.
“This is how my grandparents lit their house,” Angelica said to the girls, omitting the fact that they only did that for fun once in a while. Blake realized that if the storm knocked out all the power and it never returned, Angelica would be one of the very few happier people. No gas, no electricity, no telephones. Just the sun, the moon, family, God and nature. He walked over and sat on the sofa with Angelica and the girls. One of the girls moved over and jumped in his lap the way she would have jumped in her father’s lap if he had been there. She curled up and laid her head against Blake’s chest.
Angelica looked at Blake and smiled broadly. Blake clumsily reached his arms around the child as if he might break her. Angelica laughed. “Just hold her and love her,” she said.
Blake did. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of the child, the love of the child. She wanted nothing from him other than protection and love. She wasn’t chasing him, taunting him, or pursuing him. Instead, she needed him. He pulled her close and stroked her hair as Angelica moved close to him and pulled a blanket over the huddled family.
The howling wind and pounding rain continued through the night.
***
Clint awoke Friday morning, but thought it was still night. Rain pummeled the driveway at his Sandy Springs home under skies as dark as soot. Looking at the clock to see it was 7:30, he was a little surprised that the power was on at all. After he got up, brushed his teeth, used the bathroom and went to the living room, he flipped on the television and turned to CNN.
The video footage on the screen was horrific. At first Clint wasn’t sure if he was looking at a weather segment or a nature channel commercial. The camera angle was from the air, presumably from a helicopter flown by a brave pilot. The eye had made landfall over twelve hours prior, but the winds were still gusty. It looked as if the pilot was over the open sea, but debris was littered near and far. The caption read that the pilot was hovering over what had been Ossabaw Island, where the eye had crossed as the Category 4 storm made landfall just south of Savannah. There were hundreds...thousands of dead bodies floating in the water. Bloated, black bodies drifting aimlessly. Clint leaned to peer closely and realized that they were all pigs. The camera zoomed into a group of twelve piglets that were actually swimming toward the roof of a building. Clint watched as the piglets made it. They climbed up and joined at least a hundred other pigs stranded on the roof.
One of the reporters came back on and described what had happened. A twenty-eight-foot storm surge had hit the coast. Ossabaw Island, at only three feet above sea level, was wholly submerged, as were several other islands on the Georgia coast.
Downtown Savannah was a disaster. Video footage of when the 148 MPH winds hit the city showed every billboard being flung into the wind like a sheet of tissue in front of a fan. Skyscrapers stood, but nearly all of the glass windows were shattered or had altogether vanished in a rain of glass. Weaker buildings, especially along the river, collapsed completely. The helicopter flew over a swath of house walls that had been stripped of their roofs. Over eighty percent of Savannah was flooded. Roofing, sticks of lumber, tires, boxes, and bodies floated. The scene was too much for any human to take in, the destruction and loss of life and property too much to contemplate.
A chart displayed the track of Hurricane Isabel as it churned from the Bahamas and rapidly intensified, making landfall immediately southeast of Savannah. It spun its destruction northerly, just to the west of Augusta and the east of Athens. The eye of what was now Tropical Storm Isabel cast its destructive gaze upon Clayton, as the storm had slowed its forward progress. Record rains had fallen and were still falling in northern Georgia, eclipsing the effect of Tropical Storm Alberto in 1994, which had dropped over twenty-seven inches of rain in some places.
“Some parts of North Georgia will receive in excess of thirty inches of rain from this system,” the reporter said, almost not believing his own words. “The devastation on the Georgia coast is unimaginable, but the flooding and damage in the mountains could be equally horrific,” he added.
A panel of experts sat to discuss the impact of the storm. As with any hurricane, most of the attention was on the storm surge and the coastal impact, but a geologist on the panel spoke up and asserted himself. “I don’t think we should underestimate the effect this storm will have on the Appalachian Mountains,” the geologist, Michael Hammons, said. “Northeast Georgia and western North Carolina will be looking at major debris flows.”
The moderator probed further. “Michael, can you explain debris flows?”
“Debris flows are very dangerous,” Hammons said. “You’re looking at a mass movement of soil and rock down steep slopes.”
“Like an avalanche?” the moderator said.
“Sort of,” Hammons said. “But with an avalanche, only the surface material moves, as in the case with packed ice and snow. With a debris flow, the earth underneath detaches as well. They have far more force than an avalanche...there’s no stopping them. Anything in the path will be deeply buried.”
As the geologist spoke, an animated sequence played on the screen that depicted the sides of mountains essentially washing into the valleys below.
“What triggers them?” the moderator asked.
“Very heavy rainfalls in short periods of time,” Hammons said. “Just look at Hurricane Camille in 1969. It stalled over Virginia and dumped twenty-eight inches of rain in about eight hours. We recorded almost 4,000 debris flows that wiped out houses and killed over 150 people in one county alone.”