A Storm of Terror

It is September 21, 2013, hurricane Manuel. It has been raining for the last 26 hours straight. There is so much water flooding my backyard, even though my backyard slopes down with a steep gradation; it is still filling with water. Everything has turned to mud, but the worst has yet to come.

My house is built into a small hill, so the back part of my basement is exposed to the outside world. There are four big windows and a sliding door on that side of the basement, which is level with part of the backyard. The backyard is fenced in. It is a small nice backyard; a lot of space for a young kid and his two siblings to play outside everyday. Outside the fence is two smaller trees and then opens out into a small valley filled with trees. The house is a well built house in a good sized neighbourhood. Or at least was a good sided neighborhood.

There has been so much rain that the two small trees in the backyard have been uprooted. I can hear the house creak with ever large gusts of wind. The pounding of the rain is deafening even from the basement. It is terrifying sitting here wondering if we will make it.

In one corner of the basement close to the sliding door, there is an old box TV that is playing the news. We are sitting in the opposite corner, because that is the side of the basement that is in the ground, allowing us to be safer--hopefully. The old TV is doing its best to continue playing the news; our only hope to know when this hell will end. The TV is flicking on and off, but it flicks on long enough for us to see the map. The map shows the darkness red about to pass over us. The real terror will begin.

We are sitting in that far corner praying to God and to anyone that can hear us, for it to stop. The house is shaking and you can feel it bending. There is a deafening crack and boom. I close my eyes and beg to God that this is not the end. It would not be my end--yet. I open my eyes to see parts of the neighbors house fly past the backyard. I watch as all the parts blow away….They did not make it.

The TV flickers off than on and the news reporter says the storm is not slowing down, it is speeding up. The TV flickers off and there is a moment of silence. Maybe a miracle from God had come allowing it to stop.

The part of the basement we are in collapses. We run into the middle of the basement in hopes to be safe. The front part of the house had collapsed, falling into the basement. At that moment I knew it was soon to be over. The windows shattered. The wind was deafening. So deafening I could not think. I screamed out to God. I begged him to stop this. To stop this pain and suffering. He would answer by call, in due time.

There I sat in the middle of the basement looking out--the now shattered windows-- at the backyard. The playhouse is being ripped apart and flying past the house. I watch as the fence is ripped up. As the wind howls it bends the fence. The fence has somehow broken physics and its physical properties and is now acting like a rope in the wind. I watch in horror of what I see. Then the fence is ripped out of the ground where it was last attached and flew off.

I hear the roof get ripped off the house, and can feel the water pouring into the basement. I continue to beg--beg for it to stop. To save us. There is water flooding into the basement, and the house is being ripped to shreds. All of a sudden the wind is pulling me to the windows like a vacuum. I grab onto the couch in hopes to not be swiped out. I look around to see that my family is--is gone. They were just here. I did not see them get swept out of the basement or hear them scream. They are just gone--gone forever.

I am all alone holding onto the couch for dear life; crying and hurting from the physical pain and emotional pain of losing my family. I fight to live, I fight to hold on, but with one clean gust of wind, I am ripped off the couch and out the sliding door. I hit the frame of the doorway and get flipped around. I feel my body become a rag doll to the hurricane. I look down as I am being ripped into the sky, and see my house. The place I called home--or what was left of it. It was in ruins as much of the neighborhood was. I continued to look down and watch it all disappear, remembering all the good memories. The last thing I remember was hitting a piece of metal in the sky and being ripped in half. It was excruciatingly painful, but it was quick. God answered my pleas and ended the pain and terror.