Isaac's Storm (38 page)

The
wind
tore
loose
one
of
the
posts
that
supported
the
gallery
roof.
The
post
struck
Young,
gashed
his
head,
and
left
him
dazed,
but
he
did
not
fall.
The
wind
held
him
in
place.
The
door
seemed
about
to
tear
loose.
If
the
house
fell,
he
resolved,
he
would
grab
the
door,
rip
it
free,
and
use
it
as
a
raft.

Slats
from
the
gallery
rail
blew
away
"like
straws."
The
remaining
posts
cartwheeled
into
the
sea.
The
gallery
roof
lifted
upward
as
if
hinged,
then
blew
away
over
the
top
of
the
house.
With
a
shriek
of
wood
and
iron
the
gallery
floor
wrenched
away
and
barged
west.

Young
remained
pinned
to
the
wall,
one
foot
inside
the
doorway.
He
could
not
move.
"It
was
an
easy
thing
to
stay
there
for
the
wind
held
me
as
firmly
as
if
I
had
been
screwed
to
the
house."

The
wind
grew
even
stronger.
Young
estimated
it
reached
125
miles
an
hour.
"The
wind
at
125
miles
an
hour
is
something
awful,"
he
said.
"I
could
neither
hear
nor
see."

He
turned
his
head
against
the
rain
until
he
was
looking
inside
the
house.
The
rain
slammed
against
the
interior
walls
with
such
force
it
exploded
in
pixels
of
light.
"The
drops
of
rain
became
luminous,"
he
said.
It
looked
"like
a
display
of
miniature
fireworks."

The
wind
grew
so
strong
it
planed
the
sea.
"The
surface
of
the
water
was
almost
flat.
The
wind
beat
it
down
so
that
there
was
not
even
a
suspicion
of
a
wave."

He
could
not
open
his
eyes.
A
lion
roared
at
his
ears.
That
his
house
still
stood
seemed
impossible.
"I
began
to
think
my
house
would
never
go."

He
gripped
the
facing
of
the
door.
He
waited.
He
planned
to
kick
his
raft
free
of
the
house
at
the
first
sign
of
collapse.
He
did
not
have
long
to
wait.

ALL
OVER
GALVESTON
freakish
things
occurred.
Slate
fractured
skulls
and
removed
limbs.
Venomous
snakes
spiraled
upward
into
trees
occupied
by
people.
A
rocket
of
timber
killed
a
horse
in
midgallop.

At
the
expensive
Lucas
Terrace
apartment
building,
Edward
Quayle
of
Liverpool,
England,
who
had
arrived
in
Galveston
with
his
wife
three
days
earlier,
happened
to
walk
past
a
window
just
as
the
room
underwent
a
catastrophic
depressurization.
The
window
exploded
outward
into
the
storm
along
with
Mr.
Quayle,
who
rocketed
to
his
death
trailing
a
slipstream
of
screams
from
his
wife.

At
another
address,
Mrs.
William
Henry
Heideman,
eight
months
pregnant,
saw
her
house
collapse
and
apparendy
kill
her
husband
and
three-year-old
son.
She
climbed
onto
a
floating
roof.
When
the
roof
collided
with
something
else,
the
shock
sent
her
sliding
down
into
a
floating
trunk,
which
then
sailed
right
to
the
upper
windows
of
the
city's
Ursuline
convent.
The
sisters
hauled
her
inside,
dressed
her
in
warm
clothes,
and
put
her
to
bed
in
one
of
the
convent
cells.
She
went
into
labor.
Meanwhile,
a
man
stranded
in
a
tree
in
the
convent
courtyard
heard
the
cry
of
a
small
child
and
plucked
him
from
the
current.
A
heartbeat
later,
he
saw
that
the
child
was
his
own
nephew
—
Mrs.
Heideman's
three-year-old
son.

Mrs.
Heideman
had
her
baby.
She
was
reunited
with
her
son.
She
never
saw
her
husband
again.

THE
HOUSE
SHUDDERED,
shifted,
became
buoyant.
For
a
few
queasy
moments,
Dr.
Young
felt
himself
exempt
from
gravity's
effect.
The
time
had
come.
He
tore
the
gallery
door
loose
and
dove
for
the
sea.
Like
the
survivor
of
a
sinking
liner,
he
kicked
hard
to
put
distance
between
himself
and
the
house.
"The
house
rose
out
of
tbe
water
several
feet,
was
caught
by
the
wind
and
whisped
away
like
a
railway
train,
and
I
was
left
in
perfect
security,
free
from
all
floating
timber
or
debris,
to
follow
more
slowly."

The
current
drew
him
over
the
city.
He
saw
few
landmarks
but
believed
he
soon
passed
over
the
Garten
Verein.
Moments
later
he
too
careened
toward
the
Ursuline
convent,
but
his
door
got
caught
in
a
large
whirlpool
of
water
and
wreckage.
"I
was
carried
round
and
round
until
I
lost
my
bearings
completely."

When
the
whirlpool
dissipated,
the
inflowing
sea
again
captured
his
raft.
It
swept
him
northwest
for
fifteen
blocks
until
his
door
docked
itself
against
a
mound
of
wreckage.
"It
was
very
dark,
but
I
could
see
the
tops
of
some
houses
barely
above
the
water;
could
see
others
totally
wrecked,
and
others
half
submerged."
He
saw
no
lights,
however.
And
no
people.
"I
concluded
that
the
whole
of
that
part
of
town
had
been
destroyed
and
that
I
was
the
only
survivor."

He
remained
in
that
place
aboard
his
door
for
the
next
eight
hours.
The
wind
rippled
over
his
clothing.
Porcupine
rain
jabbed
his
scalp
and
hands.
Blood
seeped
from
the
gash
in
his
head.
In
all
that
time
he
heard
only
one
human
voice,
that
of
a
woman
somewhere
in
the
distance
crying
for
help.
He
had
never
been
so
cold
in
his
life.

SOMETHING
STRUCK
THE
house
with
terrific
force.
The
house
moved.
It
slid
from
its
foundation
and
began
to
list.
Joseph
was
standing
near
a
window
beside
Isaac's
oldest
children,
Allie
May
and
Rosemary.
"As
the
house
capsized,
I
seized
the
hand
of
each
of
my
brother's
two
children,
turned
my
back
toward
the
window,
and,
lunging
from
my
heels,
smashed
through
the
glass
and
the
wooden
storm
shutters,
still
gripping
the
hands
of
the
two
youngsters.
The
momentum
hurled
us
all
through
the
window
as
the
building,
with
seeming
deliberation,
settled
far
over.
It
rocked
a
bit
and
then
rose
fairly
level
on
the
surface
of
the
flood."

Joseph
and
the
two
girls
found
themselves
on
top
of
an
outside
wall.
They
saw
no
one
else.
"All
the
other
occupants
of
that
room,
nearly
fifty
men,
women
and
children,
it
appeared,
were
still
trapped
inside,
for
the
house
had
not
yet
broken
up."

The
only
exit
from
the
house
was
the
now-horizontal
window
through
which
Joseph
and
the
children
had
passed.
Joseph
lowered
the
top
half
of
his
body
through
the
window
and
shouted,
"Come
here!
Come
here!"

No
one
came.
No
one
called
out.
The
space
below
the
window
was
utterly
black.
Periodically
the
house
rose
with
the
current,
then
setded,
raising
the
water
within
to
the
level
where
the
window
glass
had
been.
Anyone
still
inside
would
be
completely
submerged.

Joseph
had
heard
that
drowning
men
seized
anything
that
came
near.
He
sat
on
the
window
casing
and
began
swinging
his
feet
in
the
water.
"I
had
hoped
that
some
of
the
trapped
ones
within
the
room
might
catch
my
feet
and
so
be
pulled
out,"
he
said.
"My
efforts
were
wasted
and
I
finally
gave
them
up.
I
have
no
words
to
tell
the
agony
of
heart
I
experienced
in
that
moment."

As
SOON
AS
Ruby
Credo's
parents
finished
chopping
holes
into
the
floor
of
their
parlor,
they
began
preparations
to
evacuate
to
higher
ground.
If
Dr.
Cline
planned
to
ride
out
the
storm
in
his
own
house,
that
was
his
choice.
Anthony
Credo
had
no
intention
of
doing
likewise.
He
and
his
family
were
just
about
to
leave
when
a
neighbor,
Mrs.
Theodore
Goldman,
appeared
at
the
door
with
her
son,
hoping
to
shelter
in
the
Credos'
house.
Mrs.
Goldman
did
not
trust
her
own
house,
she
said.
Her
husband
did,
however,
and
he
was
still
there.
He
refused
to
leave.

The
Credos
put
on
some
coffee
and
gave
Mrs.
Goldman
and
her
son
some
dry
clothes.
In
that
short
time,
the
water
deepened
to
the
point
where
Credo
saw
that
leaving
would
be
more
dangerous
than
staying.

He
had
built
a
storm
shelter
behind
his
house,
a
one-room
chamber
atop
six-foot
posts.
He
believed,
at
first,
that
his
children
would
be
safest
there.
He
swam
them
over
one
by
one.
As
he
watched
other
houses
in
the
neighborhood
disintegrate,
he
changed
his
mind.
He
retrieved
his
children.
If
something
terrible
happened,
he
wanted
his
family
together.
His
two
grown
daughters
were
with
their
husbands,
and
he
presumed
them
safe.
His
son
William,
visiting
his
fiancee,
was
a
grown
man
and
could
take
care
of
himself.
It
was
the
young
ones
he
worried
about
most
—
little
Ruby
and
her
sisters,
and
son
Raymond.
The
shutding
back
and
forth
to
the
storm
shelter
unnerved
him.
He
could
carry
only
one
child
at
a
time.

"The
water
was
rising
rapidly
to
the
second
floor,"
Ruby
said,
"so
Papa
helped
us
climb
from
the
outside
through
dormer
windows
to
the
attic
bedrooms,
where
Mr.
Goldman
and
his
mother
had
moved.
The
water
had
risen
so
fast
Mama
hadn't
time
to
grab
her
cherished
black
satin
corset
from
downstairs."
The
family
had
little
to
do
but
watch
the
storm
intensify.
"We
stood
at
the
windows
and
watched
the
houses
around
us
break
up,
wash
away,
and
become
battering
rams
to
knock
and
tear
others
apart
as
they
were
hurled
and
swept
about.
The
water
kept
rising;
the
sounds
of
the
storm
were
frightening;
the
house
creaked
and
groaned
as
if
it
were
in
some
kind
of
agony."

Night
had
fallen.
Ruby
sat
on
the
corner
of
a
bed
opposite
Mrs.
Goldman
and
her
son.
The
wind
accelerated.
A
streetcar
rail
pierced
the
roof
and
penetrated
the
floor
between
Ruby
and
the
Goldmans.
No
one
was
hurt.