During the Storm

It’s two in the morning and I can’t sleep. The wind outside the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office is a ravening beast. Rainwater is blowing beneath the door at the end of the hall, creeping across the carpet. Leaves, too.

Ike has arrived. The eye is crossing Galveston Island now, and soon we may have a few moments of calm here. Then, the storm surge will come.

We lost our T-1 Internet connection several hours ago, when the electricity went. Here, the generator kicked-on immediately. The generator across the parking lot at the courthouse – also the emergency operations center – flickered to life briefly, then died.

My wireless modem works intermittently.

Earlier, game warden Jon Feist and I stopped to see what was up with the massive truck parked at the end of the runway at the small county airport here.

Turns out a team of scientists from the University of Alabama at Huntsville picked Anahuac as a good place to observe the approaching storm with their X-Band, dual-polarized radar. Not really sure what that is, but it can see a long way and tells them quite a lot.

One of the things it told the researchers this afternoon is that the eye of this storm had shrunk from 80 miles in diameter to a mere 60 miles, and that the eastern eye wall would likely pass directly over us.

"It's looking a lot better," one of the researchers said.

"For us, you mean?" I asked.

"Oh, no," he replied sheepishly. "I mean the storm is looking more organized. That's not better for us."

Outside, leaves and branches and debris are rocketing through the air. The trees in front of the courthouse are whipping through an arc of about 45 degrees; surely they’ll snap.

I’m surprised we haven’t had more rain. There’s some, and it’s pretty much horizontal, but not the torrential downpour I was expecting to see.

Talk about the “fog of war …” I wrote earlier that 12 people were trapped on a roof over near Sabine Pass. Some still swear that was the case. Someone else said it was a couple of oilfield workers trapped in their truck on the road.

That ship 60 miles offshore? Maybe it was 100 miles offshore. Or 120. And the Coast Guard did attempt a rescue, to no avail. Or, at least that’s what I heard.

The folks here in Chambers County have been unfailingly kind and hospitable, especially notable in a time as stressful as this. It’s beautiful country around here – at least it was, Friday. I was surprised to discover how many ranches dot this marshy prairie. There are thousands and thousands of cows in this county. Or, there were.

Now? That’s anyone’s guess.