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Mother of all Storms
Last
week with the approach of Hurricane Gustav, I watched an interview
that reminds me of the heart pounding thrills that Mother Nature
provides free of charge. The interview was with a fisherman
foolishly planning to ride out the storm on his boat in the Violet
Canal. His custom was to find relatively safe harbor and stay to
protect his property and livelihood.
I recall how the fishing fleet of Bayou La Batre, Alabama
was destroyed, except for the boat of Captain Gump who rode out
Hurricane Carmen. As we all know, he used this disaster to found the
immensely successful, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. With peril comes
opportunity.
The interviewed fisherman had ridden out Katrina in his usual
fashion. He implied that, could they know, all would envy his
experience of seeing the world exploding around him.
Last year, I had a similar
adventure. It occurred one mid-July
evening at this very spot where I pen most of these stories. As I
look around, I still see the broken trees giving testimony to the
forces at play that eventful day.
As I sat fishing in the glass smooth waters of the Flathead River, a
storm was building over the lake. This was no ordinary storm. As Ray
Nagin would say, this was the mother of all storms. To my rear the
sky turned black. Watching its approach on my liquid mirror, I
enjoyed seeing the ominous darkness and non-stop light show. The
visual performance was accompanied by a symphony of booming thunder.
The wind hit with such sudden ferocity that I hadn’t time to reel my
line in. Rod in my hand, I crouched beside my truck. When the wind
reached unattainable velocities, it continued to increase. For fear
of being crushed by the inevitable falling trees, I was unable to
seek safety inside my truck. Clutching my door handle, I was
relentlessly pelted by debris traveling so fast that I could only
guess what it was. The smooth river had turned into a wave-tossed,
white capped sea.
During a brief lull, I called home and excitedly told them that a
storm was coming in a few minutes. Sometime during the melee a
couple of fishermen had returned to the boat launch. Cutting my
conversation short, I went to help with the
boat. As the storm
returned with a vengeance, I found the boat ramp hidden in a huge
pile of tree limbs. Miraculously, these guys were able to thread
their way through this jungle maze and we cranked the boat onto its
trailer.
Concluding that discretion is the better part of valor, I decided to
run for home. Turning onto the road, my escape was blocked by a
downed power line. Having to take the circuitous route through an
area of open fields, my concern now was remaining on the road in the
buffeting cross winds. Needless to say, I made it home.
After this storm of 100-mph winds, its damage was readily visible in
the denuded trees. Curiously the wind was very selective in its
victims. Just about all exposed tree limbs the size of a telephone
pole were snapped like toothpicks. All larger or smaller survived.
I saw about a half dozen telephone poles snapped in the middle. It
turns out that I was protected by a small wooded area across the
road from me. That was not the case, twenty feet from me at the boat
ramp.
When the wind blows a little too hard, my adrenaline still flows.
The people that fled high ground in the face of Gustav remind me of
that fisherman in Violet. If those ninnies only knew, they would
envy me.
©09/05/08
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