Camino Winds (Camino Island #2)(10)

Just after 9:00, the power lines gave way and began to snap. The island was pitch black as the storm grew louder.

After two hours of getting battered by winds over a hundred miles per hour, the boys had had enough. Bruce thought about an attempt at humor with something like “Well, I guess we should’ve left,” but why bother? The eye was still two hours away and the winds had not reached their peak. The street was solid water from the rain and the surge had yet to arrive. Bruce was certain the ground floor of Bay Books was taking water.

But for the moment he and Nick were dry and safe. There was little they could do until morning. At 10:30 p.m., the projected time for the arrival of the eye, Bruce was certain that the house was about to shear off its foundation and crash into Dr. Bagwell’s across the street. Its floors and ceilings vibrated and the walls were literally shaking. The great fear was that a limb might crash through the den and open up the house to torrents of rain and more wind. They would be forced to flee and seek shelter, but where? There was no place to go.

It was almost 11:00 when the winds stopped and the night became perfectly still. Bruce and Nick stepped outside and waded to the street, where they looked at the sky and saw stars. A TV expert said that Leo’s eye would pass in about twenty minutes, and Bruce was tempted to take a look at downtown and check on his store. But again, why bother? He couldn’t stop the flooding. The cleanup would begin in the morning. He had plenty of insurance coverage.

They walked down the street, wading in ankle-deep water, and did not see another person, not another light. Evidently the policeman had been right—all of his neighbors had the good sense to leave. In the darkness it was impossible to see where all those limbs had landed, but there was debris everywhere.

The tranquility, along with the bourbon, settled their nerves, if only for a moment. As the minutes passed, a gentle wind arrived from the west and reminded them that the storm was only half over.





12.


Leo’s two-week reign of terror climaxed officially at 10:57 p.m. Eastern Standard Time when the center of his eye came ashore along the northern tip of Camino Island. True to form, he wiggled a bit at the end, moved to the north, and stalled just long enough to maintain a Category 4 ranking, with top winds at 145 miles per hour, almost reaching the rare status as a Cat 5 at 156 miles an hour. Not that it really mattered. Eleven miles per hour mean little in such a powerful storm, and long before and long after the eye came and went its winds battered the island. Old cottages built decades earlier were blown off their stilts. Newer ones hung on but lost windows, doors, roofs, decks. The top storm surge around the eye was fifteen feet in some areas, enough to flood hundreds of cottages, homes, motels, and stores. Main Street was under four feet of water, and some of the older homes in the historic section took in water for the first time in history.

Along the ocean, all boardwalks and piers were gone. Inland, limbs and entire trees blocked streets and driveways. Parking lots were covered with roof shingles, garbage, more jagged tree limbs. In the docks and harbors, boats of all sizes were strewn about like scattered firewood.

Though virtually everyone had fled, some of the few who stayed behind did not survive. At sunrise, the first siren could be heard wailing across the island.





13.


Bruce slept for two hours on a sofa in the den and awoke with cobwebs and a stiff back. The wind was gone, the house was quiet and dark, the storm was over. He walked to a window and saw the first hint of sunlight. He put on rubber boots and walked outside where he waded through six inches of water and looked at his house from across the street. A few squares of slate were missing from the roof and a third-floor gutter had been ripped off, but the house was in remarkable shape. All of the heavy oak limbs that he had worried about were still where they should have been. Four doors down to the west, the floodwaters had made it all the way to the Keegan home but had stopped at the front steps.

He reached into a pocket and removed a cigar. Why not have a smoke? He clipped and lit it, and for a long time stood in muddy water in the middle of Sixth Street as the sky lightened and morning arrived. The clouds were thinning, the sun was rising, the day would be hot and humid, and there was no electricity to cool things. There were no sounds and not another human in sight. He walked south along Sixth to Ash and the water disappeared. The asphalt on Ash was visible. A door opened and Mr. Chester Finley walked onto his porch and said good morning.

“Had a little wind, didn’t we?” he said with a smile. He was holding a bottle of water.

“Just a little. You guys okay?” Bruce asked.

“We’re fine. The Dodsons took a hit but they’re not here.”

“Smart folks. I’m around if you need some help.” Bruce walked around the corner and gawked at the Dodsons’ pretty Victorian. A huge limb had sheared off from an oak in their backyard and literally cut the house in half. He walked on and stopped in front of the Vicker House, 1867, purchased by Myra and Leigh thirteen years earlier. They had painted it pink with royal blue trim, and it had survived well enough. A limb had crashed through a front window and Bruce suspected there was substantial water damage. He and Nick could handle the cleanup with the chain saw. That might be their first project.

As he was returning to Sixth Street, he heard the unmistakable thumping of a helicopter. He stopped and listened as it grew closer, and soon enough a Navy Seahawk came into view, flying low to survey the aftermath. Rescuers in uniforms had arrived, and that was a welcome thought. The chopper flew away and minutes later another one buzzed downtown. It was smaller, with the gaudy paint job of a news station.