Hello, Rita!
I made my way out to the parking garage mouth about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 4, to find a spectacle that I've yet to find the dead-on words to describe. Wind and rain ripped down the street so fast that it almost defied comprehension. Jaw-dropping? Awe-inspiring? What the hell was this?
The closest I've come to an accurate description is being at the end of a hydroblaster - and the storm was almost two hours from peaking.
Live TV broadcasts from the parking lots were long over. This was showtime, a meteorological maelstrom of water-spraying violence unrivaled by anything on this Earth other than a tornado. Damn, it was impressive.
A dozen or so people stood there mesmerized. The outside media now seemed impressed. Hurricane Katrina comparisons were made. No one spoke, with the only sound being the incessant howl of wind and the occasional odd piece of debris tumbling ass-over-teakettle down the street. What was that? A part off a rooftop AC unit? A street sign? Who knows? The speed at which it went by often made it unidentifiable.
The event was made more surreal by how the wind played in the corridors that the downtown buildings created. There was wind coming from behind us, wind going right to left to right. Then there was the wind going left to right under a street light 150 or so yards away, waltzing in misty vortexes. Why was the streetlight on? In fact, why where there other lights on around downtown, in random windows here and there?
Occasionally, great fists of wind punctuated the incessant drone, sending globe-shaped balls of water skyrocketing.
There was a brief lull in the entertainment, and we thought we'd seen the worst of it. But suddenly, at around 3:15 a.m., there it was, as if it were the greatest, loudest rock 'n' band in the world coming out to play its most popular song at the encore. The wind intensity suddenly face-slapped the city, grinding and mauling, screaming and whirling.
Damn, now THIS was really impressive.
How long did it last? Fifteen minutes? Thirty minutes?
I don't remember.
It died down again, and then the wind shifted, sending water and debris into our safe haven, so we took our beers and fled to the top floor, where we had a different view, one mostly of flying roof debris, much of it coming from our own building. Inside the third floor, it was a cave, with dripping water everywhere.
By this time, we were tired.
Around 5 a.m., most of us went to bed, sprawled on sleeping bags on floors throughout the building, trying to sleep knowing that the hardest part of our work was to come. And trying to understand what we had just seen.
Damn.
The closest I've come to an accurate description is being at the end of a hydroblaster - and the storm was almost two hours from peaking.
Live TV broadcasts from the parking lots were long over. This was showtime, a meteorological maelstrom of water-spraying violence unrivaled by anything on this Earth other than a tornado. Damn, it was impressive.
A dozen or so people stood there mesmerized. The outside media now seemed impressed. Hurricane Katrina comparisons were made. No one spoke, with the only sound being the incessant howl of wind and the occasional odd piece of debris tumbling ass-over-teakettle down the street. What was that? A part off a rooftop AC unit? A street sign? Who knows? The speed at which it went by often made it unidentifiable.
The event was made more surreal by how the wind played in the corridors that the downtown buildings created. There was wind coming from behind us, wind going right to left to right. Then there was the wind going left to right under a street light 150 or so yards away, waltzing in misty vortexes. Why was the streetlight on? In fact, why where there other lights on around downtown, in random windows here and there?
Occasionally, great fists of wind punctuated the incessant drone, sending globe-shaped balls of water skyrocketing.
There was a brief lull in the entertainment, and we thought we'd seen the worst of it. But suddenly, at around 3:15 a.m., there it was, as if it were the greatest, loudest rock 'n' band in the world coming out to play its most popular song at the encore. The wind intensity suddenly face-slapped the city, grinding and mauling, screaming and whirling.
Damn, now THIS was really impressive.
How long did it last? Fifteen minutes? Thirty minutes?
I don't remember.
It died down again, and then the wind shifted, sending water and debris into our safe haven, so we took our beers and fled to the top floor, where we had a different view, one mostly of flying roof debris, much of it coming from our own building. Inside the third floor, it was a cave, with dripping water everywhere.
By this time, we were tired.
Around 5 a.m., most of us went to bed, sprawled on sleeping bags on floors throughout the building, trying to sleep knowing that the hardest part of our work was to come. And trying to understand what we had just seen.
Damn.
posted by Brian Pearson at 9:15 PM
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