Chapter 20

We had just started to eat when Joan made an appearance joining us for the meal.

Like Eve, she was wearing shorts and a blouse. I was wearing shorts and a pull-over type of shirt. We cleaned up the dishes and left for the grocery store. I suspected that they might cause another riot. I was right.

The two walked in on my arms and every head in the store turned my way. However, I don't think they were looking at me! We grabbed a buggy and began to shop going through our list and even adding a few things not on the list. I usually did that. The idea of the list was to try to prevent missing something that I knew I needed not to be all inclusive.

We left the grocery store and went back to my house. Once everything was loaded into the fridge and pantry, Eve and Joan wanted to look at my storm cellar more closely.

I had two sets of steps going to it. One set was outside and the other was from inside at the kitchen. We went down the stairs turning on the lights as we went down. There was another switch at the bottom for the cellar itself. Joan looked at that and said, "Bill, I know there must be a reason but what is it?"

I said, "The lights down here are on a separate circuit from anything else in the house. If the house were blown away, the battery set down here would still power those lights. That's why there is a storm door down here, too. The idea is to make the cellar independent of the house as much as practical. The ceiling here is different from the rest of the basement for the same reason. If the house is blown away or crumples, the storm cellar will survive intact. At least, that's the design."

They looked further and found my food stocks and water. I said, "If the power goes out and if you're down here it's expected to go out, there is an extensive battery backup. All of the lights on the cellar circuit are twelve volt and run off the batteries constantly. They are kept charged by the outside power. These gauges can tell you what's going on." I pointed to a small row. "This one tells you the voltage flowing into the charger. It should show one hundred fifteen to twenty volts when outside power is present. This gauge indicates current use. If you press the button, under this last one, it indicates the amount of charge left in the batteries."

Eve said, "Bill, you are prepared here just like your truck."

I said, "Remember that we will probably be down here at least a day probably two if Horace does what I suspect it will." We went upstairs switching off everything as we went.

Once upstairs, Eve wanted to check the Weather Channel for the latest update on Horace. We went to the television and quickly found that Horace was still a category four and moving north a little bit faster. The projected line was just a hair to our west and growth to a category five very soon. Unless something changed and soon, we were going to be hit hard.

Because of the rain, we spent the day inside watching television or talking on the radio except for the necessary work of putting things away to keep them from being blown around like the patio furniture. Eve and I made a quick trip over to check on Sarah and Hop.

They were prepared and were going to their storm cellar this evening after supper. We returned to the house.

As the day wore on, it became obvious that Horace wouldn't change direction and that it would moving to a strong category five. Todd joined us for dinner and we all enjoyed some very good meatloaf.

He said, "The last projections that I saw for Horace say it is a 'five' and hit just a little to our west." He looked at me. "What does that do, Bill?"

I said, "For a hurricane, it doesn't mean much to us. Those on the coast directly south of us will be in more trouble. The east side of a hurricane gets the biggest storm surge and some of the worst winds. The Weather Channel is saying land fall will be around five in the morning. I think we will sleep in the storm cellar tonight. Early morning could be rough."

Todd said, "Greg has put us on constant duty from tonight at midnight until further notice. Your friend, Charles at the EMA, is going on full alert at midnight, too. Evacuation orders are out for the counties in Florida south, east, and west of us. No county in Alabama has put up an order yet. I don't think they will do it now. The recommendations are there but no orders."

Eve said, "We'll go to the storm cellar tonight and stay through Tuesday night or when Bill says that it's okay."

Todd said, "That's probably going to be the same time."

He looked at Joan. "Joan, I wish you were willing to leave. I am worried."

Joan looked at him and said, "Todd, I will leave right now if you will drive me and stay with me. Otherwise, the matter is closed. When you can get away, I hope you will be here with me. You must promise to be careful. I want to see you again. I can cook other meals and want you around to try them all." Eve's head and my own popped up at that. Joan blushed. "I care about Todd. He's been kind to me. I really, really like him."

It was late when Todd left. I had both Joan and Eve pack a couple of changes of clothes to take downstairs. There were three beds in the cellar. Only one was more than a single but was only a double. Eve claimed it. When I made to go to another, she threatened me with a slow, tortuous death followed by a painful dismemberment. I came to her and gave her a kiss. We wore more clothes that night than had become our habit.

Early in the morning but before five, we heard torrential rains and wind. It didn't let up for hours as the wind became stronger and then finally ebbed. Our power went out, of course. I had a weather radio and used it. The center of the hurricane passed just west of my location by fifteen miles as was predicted. The wind was still strong but was slackening slowly.

Eve and Joan wanted to go outside. I said, "Ladies, let's give it a few more hours. This thing could still spawn tornadoes. We can go up through the house and look but plan on coming back quickly." We did that. The house and barn looked good as did my tower and even my dipole. We would have to wait for some time more. It was still raining hard and the wind was blowing hard though had eased up a little. We went back down to the cellar after closing the doors behind us.

Three hours later, we came out. The rain was starting to ease up to a more normal rain. The sky wasn't as black as had been earlier. The house and barn looked okay in our initial look. I looked at my tower. It was okay but my beam antennas hadn't survived too well. Surprisingly, the dipole was still up and looked undamaged. I had disconnected all automatic systems so had to go to my backup generator and manually connect and start it. It started up and we went into the radio room to test. The HF radio net was operating.

My two meter radio was not receiving a signal. I shrugged. The antenna for it was on top of the tower. I had another that I could mount but went out to my truck instead. I cranked it and backed it out of the barn. Turning the radio on, I listened on the repeater frequency. There was an emergency net on for local use. The three of us listened to find out that many trees were down in Brantley and points south. The main county communication tower was gone again since the repairs to make it weather a hard blow hadn't been more than started.

Charles came on asking for check-in's. I said, "This is WR4L in my truck in my driveway. We just got out of the cellar. Over."

"WR4L from KM4ARV. Call me once you get to the main road. Bill, I need you and your truck badly."

"Roger. I will have the same partner as last time who is a fine emergency medicine person. Depending upon trees, we should be back on the air in an hour. Either way, I should have an idea about time to the road by then."