Way Back When Wednesday - Hurricane Fran

I grew up in North Carolina.  Or at least I claim to.  I moved there when I was 10 years old and then officially moved away when I was 20 years old.  I count those as my "formative years."  So therefore I became who I am in North Carolina.

One of the hazards of living in North Carolina (and most of the South East area) is the hurricane season that comes every year.  It starts in the latter half of Summer and lasts until mid-Fall.  We were lucky in that we lived about 3 hours from the coast, so when a hurricane did come through, by the time it came to us it was usually just A LOT of rain.

Except for one year, 1996, Hurricane Fran.  That was the hurricane that passed directly over our house.  Wikipedia says that by the time it got to Raleigh--which was right next door to my hometown--it had weakened to a tropical storm.  Tropical storm my elbow!  Rain was coming in our house!

I just happened to be watching the news the afternoon before the storm.  My mom was out of town visiting her parents in Arizona and my dad was still at work.  So I was at home alone.  I heard the report of the hurricane's probable arrival that night.  The newscaster suggested that everyone should stock up on batteries and other emergency essentials.  Being the paranoid pre-teen, I immediately called my dad and told him what I had learned.  He assured me that we would be fine and that the hurricane probably would pass right over us with little or no damage.

He was wrong.  Later that evening, the winds picked up and were freaking the two of us kids out.  I was afraid of sleeping upstairs because of all the storm horror stories I had heard and seen on TV where the roof is ripped off, or a tree falls on the roof, so we jumped in bed with Dad and once we got to sleep, we slept the entire night!  Nothing woke us up!

But my dad was getting a little worried about the house and decided to check on things.  He went downstairs and found that the carpet in the bay window of our front room completely soaked!  The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was falling horizontally, pounding into the brick on the front side of our house, seeping through, dripping down the inside of the wall, and leaking out in the carpet!

He right away, he tore back the carpet and pad and, with towels and a bucket, started mopping up the water that was quickly pooling on the bare floor.    He said he was at it for about three hours and then everything suddenly stopped.  For about 20 minutes everything was completely quiet.  No rain and no wind.  And then all of a sudden the rain and wind started again, but from the opposite direction!

I think he eventually fell asleep on the couch downstairs to keep an eye on things and make sure there were no more leaks.

As I remember, we were out of power and school for about a week.  Being out of school was nice, but being out of power wasn't.  Fran hit in early September.  That's still summer in North Carolina, and it is so humid!  Plus we had at least three days of rain!  I remember my dad complaining about taking a shower and then ten minutes later be just as gross and sweaty as before!  It was so true!

We thought of a number of different ways to deal with the heat and humidity and no power.  One way was to go to a fast food place.  Most stores and restaurants had at least minimal power back by the third day.  We would get in the car, enjoy the AC while we drove and then got nice cold drinks at the drive through.

Another, slightly odder thing we did was lay on my waterbed.  Since the power was out, the heater for my waterbed obviously didn't work.  We took all the sheets and blankets off and just layed down directly on the mattress.  It was surprisingly cool.

The most painful thing about the power being out at our house was that five houses down, they had power after just a couple days!  We could see their lights from our windows!  We had a different power company who bought power from their power company, so we were the last on the list to get power back.

And I remember very distinctly when the power came back on.  My brother and I were playing a game on the floor in the living room when we heard this strange whirring sound.  I asked him what it was and he said, I think that sounds like the heater.  The heater?!  We both realized at the same time that it wasn't the heater.  It was the air conditioner!  We ran in the kitchen to see if any of our appliances were back on.  I have never been so happy to see the lit up numbers on a microwave!  We did a little happy dance and then ran to tell my dad.

We remain convinced that the eye of Hurricane Fran passed directly over our house no matter what Wikipedia says!



images courtesy of wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Fran