A sudden beep from the table between my grandfather and me caused us both to jump. It was the phone ringing. Despite the power being out a call had gotten through the old coiled wired house phone. The caller ID read "LANCASTER 911". I picked it up and listened as the automatic message played. It was the Lancaster County Office of Emergency Management calling to notify all residents still residing in the county that all emergency services will be cancelled until further notice. This meant no police, fire, or rescue squad until sunrise--it was too risky to send out first responders as roadways were flooded or blocked by fallen trees. The storm was getting nearer, but I wasn't concerned. I made it through Isabel, Gaston, Danny, and Earl just to name a few. We were all safe and sound and had no reason to need any emergency services....right? It was approximately 4 pm on August 27th, 2011 and the center of Irene had just emerged back over water near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. I was about to deal with one of the scariest moments of my life, a time when things depended on my actions and my decisions.
My grandparents lived on the Corrotoman River, a fairly large inlet on the Rappahanock River. They were only about a 30 min. boat ride from the Chesapeake Bay so the water was still plenty salty. The Corrotoman River was on the north shore of the Rappahanock placing them on what is called the "Northern Neck" by Virginians. It's the third and furthest north peninsula in eastern Virginia formed by our four major rivers--the James, the York, the Rappahanock, and the Potomac. It was a three story house (the third floor being a basement) with a several acre yard in the front and pier extending a couple hundred feet out into the river. The house was up a steep embankment, maybe 10 or 20 feet. The winds in Irene were still hurricane force, but it wasn't anything that would tear the house apart. Thus, the biggest concern with this storm along the coastal bay was the storm surge, and being in a rare spot so high up, my grandparents didn't feel the evacuations applied to them. There were mandatory evacuations for all low lying areas and voluntary evacuations for everyone else in Lancaster County.
My family and I (meaning myself, my mom, my dad, my sister, and our dog) saddled up and drove out to my grandparents. Our intent was to get our boat out of the water and to a safe location to ride out the storm. We also helped move some furniture inside and made sure everything was squared away before the storm. We tried to get my grandparents to ride back with us, but alas that was not happening. My grandmother had just finished a battle with lung cancer only a year prior and my grandfather had a bad knee that limited his mobility. In addition, I was so fascinated by the weather and remember how crazy the last hurricanes and tropical storms were. I asked to stay the weekend--to experience the storm and to take care of my grandparents as a power outage and debris cleanup was guaranteed. My home two hours west in Richmond was surely going to get hit, but not as bad as it would be in the eye wall on the bay. This was where things were going to get exciting. My grandparents liked the idea, so it was settled. My dad would bring the boat back the day after the storm had passed and would take me home after we put it back in the water. Let the adventure begin!
Click one of the buttons below to see the official statement from the National Weather Service.
My grandfather had a great weather station on his roof that displayed weather information on a board in the living room. Throughout the afternoon the rain continued to come down, the pressure continued to drop, and the winds continued to pick up. Most of the weather in hurricanes is defined into bands, so the wind and rain would alternate between moderate and heavy through most of the day as Irene continued to track northward over coastal North Carolina.
While we had the ability to take out 22' Grady White out of the water, large yacht and sailboat owners didn't have that luxury and had to ride the storm out in the middle of the river where they weren't able to smash into their own pier. While its nothing like being out on the open water of the bay or the Rappahanock, I couldn't imagine what it was like out there. By 1 pm the power went out and I lost the ability to track the radar. The storm surge had risen at least 3 feet and was now lined up with the pier.We only had a battery powered weather radio that would alert us if a Tornado Warning was issued. But with winds now sustained at 60 mph and 4.5 inches of rain already fallen, that was the least of our concerns. Through dinner time the weather only got worse. The whole house was thumping as all the trees, bushes, and plants beat against the house in the howling winds. My grandfather's weather station reported a wind gust of 86 mph around 7 pm. It was offline the rest of the night.
I ran out into the hallway and then into her room. Her bathroom door was sitting wide open and my grandmother was laying on her back on the bathroom floor. The room felt terrifying; the lantern gave everything an exaggerated shadow and hid some places in unusual darkness. I screamed her name and her head and eyes turned to look to me; she gave a slight smile. My father had been a fire-fighter and EMT all my life, so I knew some basic first-aid and information about certain medical situations. I had not, however, had to actually deal with one before. This happened all before I had to deal with incidents on a day to day basis working at summer camp and had my official First-Aid and CPR certification. I quickly leaned in to see what was wrong. Why had she fallen? Was it a stroke, a seizure, a heart attack? She seemed a little sluggish, but was otherwise coherent. My grandmother was saying in her quiet raspy voice, "I'm okay, I'm okay, I just need some help up." Despite my grandmother being only 5'4" and fairly skinny after the chemo, it was quite the task to get her up. I did it slowly so she didn't faint or pass out again. The back of her head was swelling and she had a large goose egg forming. I was holding her and we both hobbled over to her bed.
The short, normally just a few stride walk took at least five minutes. Meanwhile, the storm outside was getting to its peak. The center of Irene was almost due east 30 miles out into the bay. Irene's eye wall was here. We reached the bed, and the whole time my grandmother insisted she didn't need help and was horribly embarrassed. I let go of her and she leaned onto the bed. I had just made a mistake, one of the biggest ones I could have made in that situation. I let go of her before she was laying down and I realized it just a half of second too late. I pulled my arms back to myself and just on cue she went over again. I don't know if its because she lost her balance or because she passed out, but either way I knew it was about to get ugly. She went back at an angle crashing into the night stand with the back of her head smashing against the bookshelf along the wall. The lamp and the rest of the night stand flipped on its side and fell on top of her. She was out cold, snoring louder than any boxer after a knock out punch. I screamed.
I screamed again as loud as I could, this time yelling "PAPA!" I did it again "PAPA! PAPA! PAPA!" but the storm was too loud. The wind and the rain was deafening and there was no way my grandfather was going to hear. I was absolutely terrified as I remembered the phone call from earlier. I realized I was alone, there was no help coming. I went into survival mode, first grabbing my grandmother's feet and dragging her out from under the mess so that she was on her back and her airway was open. The snoring stopped but she was still out cold. I had no idea how to wake an unconscious person. The yelling didn't wake her and the storm didn't wake her either. I didn't know. I ran out of the room still screaming my grandfather's name. I got down the stairs when he finally heard me. I just screamed "SHE FELL!" and ran into the kitchen to throw together a bag of ice. But then I remembered something. The power was out. My lantern was upstairs and the fridge hadn't been running for the last 8 hours. I fumbled my way through the dark using the flashes of lightning to see what was in the freezer. A bag of some sort of frozen vegetable was still cold. In those five minutes my grandfather had made it out of bed into the living room. He didn't like my screaming, it wasn't very often that I was so worked up. I told him to wait there as I ran back up to put the ice on her head. I walked in and she was starting to wake up. Her head was bleeding and the knot on the back of her head had reached chicken egg size. She was delirious and was developing a major concussion. She needed to see a doctor, but did she need an ambulance? Either way, if she did, we couldn't get one. The county had shut down. A full fledged hurricane was ongoing outside.
I put on the ice and ran back downstairs, my grandfather was nervously waiting. I told him to call 911 and inform them of our situation and then come upstairs right after. This time I was going to need help to get my grandmother back in bed. I went back upstairs to wait for my grandfather. Luckily we still had cell phone service. We had shut off our phones once the power went out to save the battery and only turned them on every hour to check our messages in case someone had called. I walked in and she was trying to get up, saying "Don't call 911, please don't!" I told her we weren't and laid her back down. She insisted on getting up, but I had learned my lesson--she was staying down until I could get help. My grandfather finally made it upstairs to the room and I had him sit with her while I went to call my dad. I trekked down to the basement so they couldn't hear our conversation (although the roar of the storm would of done just fine). As I reached the final few stairs down into the basement I noticed something as lightning flashed. It was water. A couple feet of water had filled the basement. Was it rising? Was it the massive storm surge or was it flooding from the rains? I stood where I was and made the call. I woke my dad and told him everything that happened, what I did and what I should do. The conversation was quick and to the point--stay upstairs, keep her awake, and keep icing. My grandmother was more coherent and the bleeding and swelling had stopped. After what was quite the struggle, we got my grandmother up into the bed, this time making sure she didn't fall again. My grandfather had lay down on the bed next to her and was asleep before I could even figure out what to do. I guess I wasn't sleeping either as I needed to keep her awake. My grandmother was worked up enough so I let her be with the ice pack on her head. I retreated to my room and sat down, shaking uncontrollably from the excess adrenaline in my system and attempted to read Jane Eyre. Every 15-30 min I walked in and woke her to make sure she would be fine in the morning.
At 6 am I noticed something different. It wasn't the light that had started to filter its way into the room, but it was the the sound. It was quiet. There was no more roar. The storm was over. I got up and peaked out the window. A light rain was falling but the air was still. I then heard a noise downstairs. I sat up, still. Both my grandparents were in the other room. Just then, I got a text on my phone, it was my dad. It read, "I'm Here."
It turns out we fared pretty well. We only lost a few boards on the pier and only a few trees in the yard. The flood waters that had filled the basement had drained. My grandmother's swelling had gone down and she was feeling fine. It turns out my dad had left home about 1 am in an attempt to get to the house. I guess I sounded a bit scared on the phone. Whether or not that was a good idea, he had quite the story to tell about driving on the wrong side of the interstate to avoid trees, crossing the Rappahanock Bridge in the howling rain and wind, and sleeping in his car in the middle of the corn fields up the road once he couldn't get any closer. All I knew was that I was happy to see him.
A few weeks later my grandmother was re-diagnosed with throat cancer during some doctor visits after the couple of falls. She passed away in early august of 2012, one year later. The house had to go and was sold this past fall.
"Never let your fear decide your fate."
-Aaron Bruno, AWOLNATION, "Kill Your Heros"
