From all reports, Hurricane Wilma wasn't a big worry – it was expending a lot of energy over the Yucatan Peninsula and by the time it reached us on east side of South Florida, it would be a Force 1. No Bigee – some wind and rain to endure. Went to bed Sunday, keeping a one-ear-alarm open to the bedroom windows and big glass sliding-doors facing the water, just in case. . . Woke up, startled, at 7 a.m. with the wind screaming and the big doors rocking back-and-forth. Next four hours fought back against a Force 3 Hurricane – winds at 100, gusting to 125. Each of the five Hurricane sliding doors weigh about 200 pounds apiece and they were slamming and jumping against each other. Fearing at any moment they would pop out from the tracks, opening the house to major damage -- arms out/back bowed, I leaned against the middle three doors for four hours, battling the southeast winds rejuvenated by all the water (Intracoastal and Ocean) around us. Winds were so strong they were vaporizing the rain and flinging wraiths of moisture up from the Intracoastal and slamming the water against the windows. Windows held in the wind – new thick hurricane glass put in last year – but water still came in (as if whirled/hurled faster than the atomic structure of glass, itself!)
While I held the doors, Paula threw every towel, sheet, bedspreads, pillows, terry-cloth nightgowns, and rags we had to soak up the water from the carpet and the tiles on the porch where the doors, each time they bounced, let in a new flood. I was soaking wet, spitting the hair out of my eyes and fighting with all I had to hold those doors in place. The gusts were frightening in their ferocity! The unrelenting force of the winds took so much out of you; and then the gusts on top of the constant force were like getting slugged with additional body shots from Joe Frazier. Had to, at times, stick out a leg and shake it – to release all the wild energy I was absorbing! Heard intermittent muffled explosions as trees and power poles toppled and windows and electrical transformers blew. Hurricane, itself, sounded like a jet-engine near full-power. At the worst of it, Paula kept screaming: "MICHAEL! GET AWAY FROM THOSE DOORS – YOU'RE GOING TO DIIIIEEE!!!!!" Then the winds abated and suddenly it was dead-calm. We were in the actual Eye – 90 Miles wide! (Unheard of – Hurricane Eyes normally 20-30 miles across.) This one covered all of South Florida! The sun came out, winds dead-calm. Everyone popped out of their homes and compared damage notes. Most people had windows blown-in. All the palm trees on the property were down. Lawn littered with wires and bits of metal. It looked like a war-zone. Yet you felt strangely euphoric (probably endorphins from the fear & fight) – and it felt, as if you were in a new place, an atmosphere rarely visited before, breathing an oxygen elixir of cleansed, rare air. Then just when you were lulled into relaxing -- the back-end of the Hurricane hit – the west winds as strong as the leading winds. Back to the battle-station; manned-up on the side-doors this time. . .
Looking back now, I know that the only way I could hold those doors for four hours was being marathon trained and mentally knowing how to carry pain through time. Toward the end of the fight, in a state of weary detachment – heard music in my mind: "Riders on The Storm" by (who else?) The Doors! "Into this world we're thrown/Like a dog without a bone..." Fortunate to have many bones (filet mignons) in my life to chew on – when so many this past year left with so little. Most Hurricanes ever in one season (since 150 years of man keeping track). . . Wilma lowest barometer-reading in history (went from a tropical depression out in the Atlantic to a Force 5 overnight! fueled by high-octane hot ocean water). . . South Florida – Worst Power Blackout and for Longest Duration in U.S. History. . .$100 Million damage just to our town of Boynton Beach (where winds the strongest) newspapers reported. . . 21 people dead, including a woman down the road who died of "massive crush" when a 200 pound hurricane glass door fell in on her. She was a former-correspondent for The New York Times.
Had to cancel an Africa/Mt. Gorilla trip to do immediate repairs on house (fixed a mangled door exposing home to the elements; new sheet rock under the window where the water came in; car had punctured tire from piece of projectile metal and bumper a bit beat-up from falling tree.) Before next summer -- big project to shutter all the water-facing windows and reinforce the hurricane doors. Price to pay for livin' in Paradise.
Paula now bragging to friends: "What toppled trees, couldn't take-down my husband!" (Please allow three chest thumps and a gorilla hoot.) A week later – Power just came back on – but I still feel drained to the core. Phillip Roth once said that "Nothing bad can happen to a writer." It's all grist-for-the-mill. And Hurricane Wilma, unto itself, was a fierce, whirling mill grinding all in its path.
Michael Modzelewski