The big storm

Of all the concerns about our trip, our biggest was foul weather.  This was reflected by our planning for every contingency possible.   We invested in the best lift raft we could afford, a storm jib, the GPIRB (emergency locator beacon with GPS), a satellite phone, even a subscription to a marine weather forcasting  service for ‘go/no go’ weather windows.  We keep a watchful eye for storms, especially the nortorious Mistrals that blow 50 mph gusts from France across the Mediterranean.  However, a  storm still managed to sneak up on us, and that was the one that hit at home.

 Tropical Storm Irene had all the same wind-up in the media with the usual dire warnings for evacuations and prediction of ‘the big one of 2011’ that accompanies every hurricane, every season.  Millions prepare for the storm, appropriately so, usually by clearing out stocks of bread, milk, and toilet paper in every grocery store from Boston to Miami.  The run on toilet paper seems to be particularly pervasive in the DC area.  After all the fuss, Irene, just like most other storms was downgraded to a ‘Tropical Storm’.  A big blow, but no major damage was expected.  Once the storm was downgraded, we no longer gave it much thought and we expected and planned to hear from our tenants, Shelly and Ivan, about who to call for clean up at most.

What we were not prepared for was a flurry of emails from friends with subject headers reading ‘Tell me what you need’, ‘Damage update’, and ‘Insurance company info?’.  WTF?  The emails opened slowly and as we read half of one message ‘possibly condemmed’ subsequent emails opened with more information dribbling in all too slowly:   ‘…looks like both cars are totaled’ , ‘car has been extracted’ and a simultaneous sigh of dismay and relief with ‘…everyone is OK’. 

We had spent an extra day on the stunning Amalfi coast.  We initially planned just an overnighter in a town called Positino, based on my friend Dina’s gush that it was the most beautiful place she has ever seen.   Dina is Palestinian, and anyone can tell you that that is no longer a beautiful place, so maybe that lent some extra credibility that she knows a beautiful thing when she sees one.  OK, sounds interesting, so let’s go.  The Amalfi coast was a only a few miles off our route and it probably would be worth a look.

The sail from down the coast blew us away.  The two main coastal towns of Positino and Amalfi are so beautiful it is impossible for me to adequately describe them and they simply have to be experienced for one’s self.  The coastline is rugged and features cavernous valleys and rock pinnacles that are neatly terrace farmed with vineyards, lemon orchards, fig and, yes, real pomegranate trees.  Below, the towns are tight clusters of buildings perched on rocky culverts on the coast.  Put it this way, I put on my running shoes to do a little sightseeing around down, and ended up walking 5 miles inland passing villas and valleys.  It was simply too beautiful to turn back, I simply had to see what was further down the road.  It was only once I reached a small town that I noticed that I was soaked with sweat, dizzy, and potentially facing a case of heat stroke if I were to keep going.  I filled my water bottle in a stone fountain with a face with a spigot in its mouth and fish in the collecting basin.  Unlike the states, the water fountains are real outdoor water FOUNTAINS.  I have yet to see the type we have at home.   This also explains why I recall occasionally seen foreign visitors (usually older) splash off and, dear God, drink from fountains in DC. 

Since the beauty of the Amalfi coast brought me to my knees, I told Code that we had to spend another day to take it all in, and he readily agreed. 

We spent our second day going inland to the artist’s commune of Ravello.  Just the name of the town enraptures me.  It is the only word I can say in Italian that sounds somewhat authentic as it saunters off  the tongue.  Rra-VELLLLL-o.  Si, madame, Rra-VELLLL-o.   The town is perched on a hill overlooking adjacent surrounding valleys.   If you can imagine Alpine slopes in a Mediterranean climate with the Italian culture of fine food, great art, and high fashion you are on your way.   We strolled, we took in the beauty, we fell in love, and we left broken hearted that we could not stay forever.    But, we had to push on to our much anticipated stop on Stromboli Island, a 24 hour sail away, where there is an active volcano (and, possibly stromboli).  As always, we did a quick email check as part of our preparation for a passage.

Bliss can turn to panic in an instant.

Code immediately called Ivan on Skype, and his voice was calm but I could see his hand almost imperceptibly shaking as Ivan gave us more information.  We still had no pictures, and couldn’t open those Ivan sent without using the bandwith needed to talk, but details of the destruction were pretty clear.  Our neighbor’s (50’)large tree fell across our sunroom and essentially broke it in two.  Our shed was crushed.  The fence was taken out.  The top of our brick chimney was swept off the house.  The front bedroom window had a limb the size of many tree trunks go through it.  All three cars are totaled, mine had a nearly two foot diameter limb crush it, and bricks from the chimney 3 stories up went through the windshield and roof to finish it off.  Codes car also had bricks through the sunroof (the same sunroof that I had repaired literally 3 days before we left for Lisbon)and the back quarter is crushed.  Ivan and Shelly’s SUV was also crushed and buried under leaves and limbs of the tree.  The damage was so widespread that even the railing on the portico over the entry on the opposite front corner of the house was taken out.

Shelly and Ivan had been watching tv in the sunroom just 15 minutes before the tree crashed through it.  They said it was instantaneous and unlike my optimistic imagination, there would be no escape time.  Shelly had the good sense to have the family sleep in the living room that night.  We would have had much less foresight and I am sure we would have slept in the sunroom to take in the sights and sounds of an amazing storm. 

Our subdivision is called ‘Woodside Forest’ and was established in the 1940s.  Since then, the forest has had plenty of time to grow big, tall, and old.  Just last summer, we removed 7 trees from our back yard so that they would not fall on our house in a storm, but our backyard still gets plenty of shade.  Or, apparently it used to. Calling our section of the planet a subdivision makes it sound so sterile, as it really is a very tight knit neighborhood where we have many close friends and good acquaintances.  The neighborhood had that old-fashioned feel where our kids are playmates, we cook-out together with other families, and we chat at the school bus stop long after the kids have gone (we sometimes hardly notice that the bus has come and the kids are gone).    Nicole and Stu have been tirelessly emptying our smashed cars of their soaked contents, and many others have also come forward with offers to take in Ivan and Shelly or do what they can.  Insurance will send out an appraiser and a clean-up and patch up team to make the house liveable until it is reconstructed. 

Code has swung into action as he so capably does in crisis, even while taking it all in.  Fortunately, insurance covers the cost of patching up and cleaning up as well as the repairs and replacement.  While our cars were not insured since they were not being driven, we are sure that between our would-be deductible and the low value (other than personal  value) of our cars, we did not take much of a loss (they were actually both over 10 years old).  Financially we will recover, and that is less of a worry.

While Code was on the phone, the boys had lots of questions and worries, too.  Is that the end of our house?  Do we have a place to live now?  Will this cost us all our money?  Do we not have cars anymore?  Between calls, and emails and our own personal panic, we assured them and explained that insurance covers these things, the house will be rebuilt, but that it will take a lot of time and coordination from our side to fix things.  It was quite the scene, the four of us suddenly shifting gears on the boat, each with our own worries and concerns trying to make sense of it all.

In truth, our own worries about logistics abound.  We need to have our house rented, even with an obvious deep discount for having the sunroom and office missing, but will it be too much for Shelly and Ivan?  That is a lot for anyone to take.  How can we manage the reconstruction from here?  We have a great builder, but following what is sure to be an increase in demand is he available?   What will this mean to our year abroad?  Is it over?  If so, we have to unwind a lot of things very fast, and in a sense, we’re kind of stuck here until then.  If we had to go home, it would crush me.  We signed on for this year with an almost never-say-die attitude.  We have dreamed of this year, argued about this year, planned for this year.  We love this year.  We took precautions and prepared our house and took care of everything we could to protect our dream and make it happen.   How can one tree, one that is not even our own and had no control over, come down and have the potential to wipe it out?