Flooded Out of 17th Floor

Flooded Out of 17^th Floor

September 12, 2008 approximately 4PM:

My husband and I walked along the fourth floor upper deck of our apartment parking garage persistently caressed by promising breezes ruffling our hair and cooling our humidity heated cheeks. Above us circled gray outer bands of clouds in perfect spiral formation interspersed with stripes of blue sky sporting sunshine between them. As beautiful as the effect appeared the atmospheric phenomenon was an ominous reminder of the approaching weather forecast.

A monstrosity of a hurricane was knocking on the Gulf of Mexico coastline along Galveston, Texas and here we were, a mere forty-five miles inland, preparing to hunker down as recommended by the local weathermen. If you weren't out of Houston by now there was little chance you could get far enough away from the 400 plus mile wide path of the storm. Roads would be clogged and hotels full along any escape route.

Earlier that week:

My husband's career had him following various control engineering contracts throughout the US. Currently he was in Houston,Texas, for an indeterminate amount of time. Because I still ran my business in our home state of Illinois I would not always travel with him but would make extended visits to his location.

My daughter's family had decided they would like to vacation in that locale so I rode down with them planning to stay for a while. My son-in-law was looking forward to attending an Astro's baseball game with his two young sons. All of us wanted to hit the beach in nearby Galveston.

My husband had dragged our aging 28-ft fifth-wheel trailer down to live in and set it up in a new RV resort on the outskirts of the city. But recently he decided to rent an apartment blocks from his office instead. The plan was for the kids to stay in the camper while we moved to the apartment then later we could decide what to do with the cramped camper.

The weather forecast turned nasty and changed all plans. The family decided to cut their trip short and high-tail it for home. My daughter cried when I decided to stay with my husband.

The campground owners said you could leave the camper but you could not stay in it. That was all right. We had the perfect place to hunker down. The apartment building was a beautifully ornate solid 1980's concrete fortress so one could not hear every movement of neighbors to the sides, below or above. Although there was no one above. My husband, Walt, had chosen the largest, highest unit he could. It was formerly a two bedroom turned into a one bedroom on the 17^th story with a penthouse view of the city from the sheltered balcony. We stocked the fridge and filled both bathtubs with water as recommended and prepared to ride out the storm in our secure new apartment we had furnished with rental furniture.

Evening of the 12^th:

Not knowing the residents yet, we knew nothing of the hurricane party they were throwing in the sunken living room of the lobby on the entrance floor. With nothing else to do we stayed glued to the local weather station watching the approaching doom. For a while Walt stayed sentinel-like on the breezy balcony until the wind threatened to blow him away.

The large window in what once was the second bedroom now turned living room rattled with the wind. The sliding door to the balcony off the dining room glowed as transformers sparked across the cityscape. And the TV winked out. With nothing else to do we turned in and fell asleep listening to the howling wind outside the ceiling to floor length window of the bedroom which looked out on the recessed balcony.

Sometime in the middle of the night a horrendous noise above woke us. The sound of an engine? One that should have been better tuned. Walt assumed it was the building's generator reluctantly switching on above us on the rooftop. It sputtered and choked and grumbled and belched annoyingly loud directly above us.

I wanted to know if the hallway outside of our door had lights on. The alarm clock did not. Due to issues with his hips Walt recently started using a wheelchair for mobility. So when I stepped down on our carpeted bedroom floor water squished between my toes. Aw, oh, what happened? None of the windows were broken open. He said the water was being forced in by the wind around the window wall. I took a look in the hallway and thankfully the lights there were working.

With nothing else to do about the wet carpet at this time of night we tried to fall back asleep with the generator chugging and clanging away above us. At least it meant the elevators would be working.

Suddenly all went quiet. “Thank goodness, now we can get some sleep!” was our immediate thought. But the next thought was, “Oh, no! That means the generator is out so we won't have working elevators! Yep, the hallway was dark.” Since there was nothing else to do we slept some more.

Saturday, September 13

The following day dawned hot and humid which meant hot and humid inside our lovely wet apartment without air conditioning. With all three elevators out of commission we were pretty much stranded on the seventeenth floor. We received some information from a neighbor that the opulent downstairs lobby, game room and fitness center had been flooded because they were all located lower than ground level and the water had poured in from the street. A picturesque wall sized window shattered and the front double glass doors blew out, too. Their hurricane party had been rudely interrupted by...well, a serious hurricane featuring 110 mile per hour ferocious winds driving sheets of piercing rain!

With nothing else to do I spent a good portion of the day trying to soak up water from the floors and carpeting. I slipped large red solo cups over all the legs of the rental furniture trying to save them from damage. One of the bathtubs leaked out our back-up water.

It's no accident my husband's career title is 'control engineer'. He likes to maintain control of his environment. He felt out of control and quite antsy. He wanted out. It took some convincing because where were we going to go since we only had half a tank of gas in the truck and hotels were full. Finally, he calmed down enough to enjoy our forced isolation.

But then that night we could hear drip...drip...and more dripping. Turned out the culprit was a sprinkler inside the linen closet. Why a sprinkler in the linen closet? I had to rescue our towels, extra sheets and blankets by spreading them around the humid rooms to dry out.

Sunday, September 14

Walt had all he could stand. He was ready to go anywhere else. We packed what we could of his dress work clothes in a suitcase along with a duffle bag for my duds and a little of the still usable food in a cooler. He slung the duffle over his shoulder and loaded the cooler on the wheelchair planning to use it as a walker to manage the stairs. I thought if we needed more I could climb one trip up the 17 stories. Otherwise, my job was to roll the suitcase and corral the uncooperative cat.

The only carrier we had for the cat, Blacktop, was a temporary box we got from the vet. Did I mention how humid it was? I had her in the hated confinement and lifted the box to go. I held the box handle but Blacktop was still firmly planted on the floor atop the bottom of the box. It disintegrated in the dampness. I tucked her under my arm and we started the descent.

Part way down one of the 17^th floor residents was on her way up. When she saw the struggle my husband was having she went back down and recruited two strong young men to assist us.

Luckily, our truck was intact. First he wanted to check on the camper before we decided what to do. We drove the eight miles to the campground and were surprised only one trailer had taken the plunge into the small man-made lake. Some of our wheel stops were never located but otherwise our camper was perfectly intact, also. Amazingly, the park had electricity. One of the few places that did. We passed lots of devastation along the route. We could see a long line at a nearby gas station. Probably the only one with working pumps for miles. He waited in that line for a couple of hours for more fuel while I set up camp again.

In the next few days our idyllic oasis was overrun by utility vehicles with the workmen sleeping in their trucks. A welcome intrusion. It is one thing to ride out a hurricane and another to ride out the aftermath without power. No supermarkets, restaurants, gas stations, cell phones or any other conveniences were operational. Dodging downed trees, debris, poles and wires was the norm. This lasted for weeks throughout different parts of the region. We were blessed to have our little camper. And thankful for the electricity.

My husband found out his G.E. office sustained substantial damage as many downtown buildings did so he didn't go to work for several days. We checked on our apartment. After three days they had one elevator working again but never did get the third one up and running in the following year we stayed there. The billiards room and fitness center also took all year to be repaired.

The roof was hit by a funnel cloud taking out the generator, damaging the sprinkler system and elevator shaft. On the seventeenth floor and a couple below it all drywall needed to be stripped eighteen inches up and repaired. After three weeks we moved back in to it and sold our faithful camper to some rescue workers.

Four months after Hurricane Ike we finally took a trip to Galveston Beach. The devastation still was an open wound. It caused billions in damage and had taken 195 lives, seventy five in Haiti where it first made landfall. Within three years the national weather service retired the name 'Ike'. He had left his mark.

Do we like Ike? Well, we rode the wild wind of Ike and survived but were flooded out of our 17^th floor apartment!