Our return to Houston to finish out the Summer was short lived. After the stressful yet eye-opening month in Springfield, the tropical depression in the Gulf had become Hurricane Alicia and it was headed for the area. Being a Midwesterner, all I knew was what I had seen on the news and disaster movies…the extreme highlights: flooding, rubble, thousands of people drowning, etc. Naturally I freaked out since I had this recurring thought of Grandma seeing our corpses lying face down in a cesspool on CNN.
Dad didn’t seemed worried. I think his co-workers had told him all about their past experiences. This didn’t assuage me. The region’s last serious hurricane was in 1961. To me it meant very few really remembered what to expect after 20 years of near misses such as Danielle.
Mom seemed to share my fear because she convinced Dad to let us (Mom, Brian and me) load up the newer car and head farther north where the hurricane would be less dangerous. Dad chose to stay behind in case of looters I guess. We lived in the suburbs so this was unlikely, even in a city as violent as Houston. Before leaving, I packed up everything in my room, then sealed the boxes with plastic bags and stored them all on shelves that were at least four feet high. I was preparing for a probable flood. Seems rather ridiculous to do if your life is at stake and it was futile if the house were blown away by wind.
The drive north was tense. It wasn’t from everybody’s nerves being frayed over the pending disaster; this would be understandable. Sadly, Alicia reinvigorated all the recent friction we were having during the previous month in Springfield. Thus our “evacuation” was a continuation of all the unfinished arguments my mother probably wanted to have the final say about (a trait she denies sharing with her mother). I personally think most of the fighting was the “normal” parental-teenager stuff everybody lives through with a dose of the usual angst 15 year olds have.
We kept going north on I-45 until we felt were safe enough and the strain had reached a tipping point at Madisonville. For years I always thought it was Madison, like the capital of Wisconsin. After Mom scored a hotel room, we hunkered down anticipating the worst from every angle. Just in time too. When the sun set, the wind picked up as Alicia made its presence felt 200 miles away. The only two strong memories I had of passing the time were my Traveller books while watching The Exorcist on CBS. Meanwhile, I clearly remembered what was on TV vividly because the horror movie provided an unusual catharsis. A flick about someone being possessed by the devil is little comfort during a natural disaster, especially for me. I already disliked the genre, it only heightened my anxiety. On the other hand, there was nothing else on. When the girl projectile vomited on the young priest, I was “possessed” with a fit of laughter which lasted a few minutes. I know it made me feel much better, enough to sleep through the bulk of Alicia. Too bad it didn’t have the same effect on Brian and Mom.
With the coast being clear, we returned to Houston. The rain was thick yet it wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before in Midwestern thunderstorms. We didn’t see any signs of devastation to the city which was a huge relief. The house looked great, it only lost a few shingles. There was no electricity though. This resulted in Brian and me arguing over who got to use the battery-powered FM radio until HL&P restored the juice to the neighborhood two days later. The nastier surprise was using the community pool. Either its heater was out or all the rain water Alicia provided made it feel colder than Lake Springfield.
With it behind me, I then went on feeling embarrassed about my first and only hurricane experience. Alicia did a slew of damage yet it wasn’t Andrew, Hugo or Katrina, it was just an amped up thunderstorm. Other than it postponing school a week, it didn’t have any long-term effect on my family. We would’ve been better off staying home as the neighbors did instead of panicking like rubes. When classmates at Clear Creek told their stories in Mrs. Lacy’s Latin class, I felt even dumber. Eventually this passed and by the time we moved back to the Midwest, I recall Alicia being quite the conversation piece.
Epilogue: Somara’s final days in Houston were during Hurricane Alicia. I think she will post her memories in either the comments or on her own page. Other past and present residents I personally know could do the same: Sonia, Sheila, Mark B, Tom and Jeremy readily come to mind.
For more details, Wikipedia had an author(s) do a great relatively accurate job on it.