We name the storms so that we don't forget.
Ike, every big building on Galveston Island has a line marked, showing how high the water came. In Corpus, Andrew, and Carla, are their storms.
Rita took down something like 40 or more mature trees on my dad's place, about 3 acres. Beech, red oak, pine, most of them in the 60 to 70 year age range.
We were living in the Montrose area in Houston when Ike came through, renting the back half of a house that had 3 big pecan trees around it, 140 years old or so. Pecans shed their limbs in big storms.
When I walked out that morning, the back yard was covered in limbs and debris to over my head, seven or eight feet deep pretty uniformly. It was a long night, listening to the storm roll around us. The cats were definitely not amused, but the four year old mostly slept through it.
When Alicia came through, mom and I were living out north and west of Houston. But the storm, when it moved through downtown, was reasonably well televised. We watched glass sheets torn from the highrise buildings and fly through the empty streets.
About ten or twelve miles from our house, when the eye passed through one of the neighborhoods, a guy came out of his house, to watch the quiet. The back side of the eyewall came through while he was out surveying the damage, and killed him.
People left Cameron Parish, and south Calcasieu Parish, when Rita came through.
Because they remembered Audrey. My great-grandparents were living just off Common street, just north of McNeese State University.
When Rita came in, she pushed her waters up just south of the Lake Charles airport.
Audrey pushed all the way to where McNeese is today. When my great-grandfather and grandfather went out the next morning, to help rescue folks south of town and into Cameron Parish, they launched their boats from Gulf Highway.
Just north of where Burton Coliseum is now. They pulled bodies from the canals and the marsh for days. So when Rita came through, and now with Laura coming, people leave. Everyone understands, you can rebuild.
If you're alive to do it.
We name the storms because we're here, and they ain't. And that's the way we want it to continue to be.
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Please keep it on the sane side. There are an awful lot of places on the internet for discussions of politics, money, sex, religion, etc. etc. et bloody cetera. In this time and place, let us talk about something else, and politely, please.