The Storm

BALTIMORE - A monster storm creeping up the Atlantic Seaboard seemed so out of place in late October.  It is, by far, the most beautiful time of the year here.  The days are warm but not hot.  The evenings are cool but only right at dawn are they cold.  The leaves are breathtaking and they linger on the trees for weeks. A row of 50-foot trees by the south entrance to the Maryland School for the Blind turn brilliant orange by the second week in October, and stay that way until well into November.  A line of red-orange trees in the median of Roland Avenue turns that beautiful road picturesque  in early October, and it grabs and holds your attention every time by.  Fall mums, treated often to soft autumn rains, hold their blooms for weeks.  It's hard to imagine the following season when this season is so beautiful. 

While a frost usually hits by mid-month, it is often not the hard frost that kills the flowers and other summer plants.   it's really hard to get your arms around the idea of a hurricane coming when the conditions outside are dominated by the cool crisp airs of fall.  Were it merely a gale endangering ships at sea, it would be autumn on the coastal plain.  But this was no gale.  It was a hurricane that morphed into a "northeaster" and it combined the staggering power of both.  

Rain finally started around the Chesapeake toward sundown Sunday.  Driving to a concert Sunday night one was struck by the abandoned feel of the streets.  People living around here give up their vehicles with great and obvious reluctance.  For them to be hunkering down this far in advance is a testament to how well the forecasters have driven their message home.  By Monday morning the rain is steady and the wind sharp.  It isn't hard enough to scare you, yet, but it is odd enough in its persistence to serve as a warning of things to come.  Our babysitter Governor is on the TV and on the radio and anywhere else he can get some facetime.  He warns that "people are going to die today."  He really did say that.  I know I felt better.  

Now there was talk that the hurricane was a far different sort than usually skirts by these parts in late summer.  Those storms are openly and obviously tropical in there formation, and they quickly blanket the coast in warm, close, cloying air, air so full of moisture that you feel you need a shower to get rid of it.  This storm lost its race with a mid-fall cold front, so by the time it arrived the temperature had left the station in a down-bound train.  By Monday morning it was cold and raw; by Tuesday it was cold, just cold.  The government types told everybody to stay off the roads, and Baltimore's Mayor made her request mandatory Monday night, warning everyone off the street until noon Tuesday.  Outside the City limits, though, Monday afternoon found the roads crowded and the stores all open.  A Starbucks in Perry Hall posted signs saying they were gone by 2 pm.  The Giant, however, showed no signs of closing and they had their shelves packed with all of the things people tend to hoard in storms like this.  The only thing that everybody sold out of quickly was flashlights.  You had to be a detective to find one of these.

By sunset Monday the TV folk said the storm had made land somewhere in New Jersey.  The wind was howling but not so much so that it sent chills down your spine.  in fact, my house, so susceptible to power outages in even the most tame of weather episodes, never saw the lights go out.  One time they flickered, but that was it.  Last summer, when that freak line of thunderstorms roared all the way across the country one Friday night in the middle of an early July heatwave, we lost power for the better part of a week.  Thoughts of that very long week were in a front row seat.  I hoped not to view that show again.  My parents, who live about six miles west of here in the county seat at Towson, lost their power at the same time last summer, and they had the bad luck again.  Just before 11 pm Monday their lights went out and they stayed out until 10 am on Thursday.  My dad is 85, but he is ready to bury his electric lines himself.  Two of those lines spent several days laying in his back garden anyway. 

I read where obama was acting presidential during a trip to New Jersey to view ground zero in the Sandy Epic.  That was nice, seeing the president acting like a president for a few hours.  Sadly, his term was four years.  Two good hours won't due it.  His spokespeople in the media felt all warm and cudly after the visit. The coverage made it seem like all now was well and good.  Then they hopped a plane and left the devastation behind.  But all was not well and good.  Within 24 hours a nervous and worried Mayor of Hoboken made a desperate plea for fuel oil and other necessities. It will take a long long time to put this terrible mess behind.  One wondered whether some will ever rebuild, what, with new environmental regulations and tougher building codes.  

It was a beautiful autumn.  The Maple Tree in my front yard did not keel over.  Many others did.