Apocalypse Chronicles: The Wake Up Call Part .3

The Wake Up Call Part .3

Continued From Part .2

…I was suddenly awakened by a loud banging noise against the side of house, the wind had really picked up steam and I had to go to work in a couple hours.

As I laid there I couldn’t believe how loud the wind was getting , the gusts were impressive and my mind raced to the night before when we were awakened by the mysterious loud boom.

I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to get much rest in 2012 , only 2 days into it and I was already experiencing sleep deprivation, which I don’t like at all , there was more banging noises outside and I decided to just get up.

When I got to the door I open it and looked out over the deck and could hardly believe how hard the wind was blowing. The giant pine trees on our property were bending and moving in the wind likes blades of grass, the sound was almost deafening.

The lights flickered a bit and I started to worry about loosing power. I turned on my laptop and got on the internet to look at the weather forecast and the satellite images to see what had hit us.

It was the typical pattern coming out the pacific , ofter referred to as the Pineapple express, although this river of wind and moisture stretched for over 4  thousand miles , I had never seen anything like it.

As I looked at the satellite images I had a feeling in my gut that said we were goign to get hammered. I made some coffee and headed out the door to batten down the hatches , and make sure everything was secure.

As I made my rounds around the property the wind had reached a point that was approaching hurricane speeds, and  I knew that we were in for some sort of unprecedented event, I could just feel it.

Everything felt strange , unreal, I didn’t feel like I was inside my body , the last  48 hours were perhaps the strangest most exhilarating moments in my life and things looked like they were just getting started.

As the morning wore on, the winds increased to 80 mph with gusts topping 100 mph and Hanna and Henry were both becoming increasingly nervous and frightened.

Living along the Oregon Coast we were fairly use to big storms and wind and heavy rain during the winter months and we usually enjoyed these times by lounging around the fireplace and playing cards or reading and watching TV, but this event was not something that you could relax to.

It was starting to get light outside and I knew I needed to go to work but it just didn’t feel right leaving , not in weather like this , I couldn’t leave Hanna alone and Henry just gave me that sad look that made me want to stay home.

Just as I was about to call into work to let them know I might be late , we heard the wind gust so hard that we heard the roof crack and it felt like air pressure just dropped , we both felt our hearts burst out of our chest , this was getting down right scary. Hanna was concerned about our elderly neighbors and went to get her phone to call them.

When she dialed their number , all she got was a busy signal , the phones were down already , things didn’t look good , she went looking for her cell phone to give that a try, and finally got Pat Johnson on the phone.

Are you OK over there?  Hanna asked Pat. Pat sounded frightened and said Dan had gone outside to check on things which wasn’t the best of ideas , and Hanna said I should go check on him, which I thought was an even crazier idea.

8am January 2nd 2012;

Dan was ok,  no trees had fallen on him, I told him he should get back in the house , becasue that’s exactly what I wanted to do, so we both headed back to our houses and our wives, I was glad to get back inside.

Hanna said that her cell phone was no longer getting signal, she had lost contact with her mom and she looked a bit pale from all the excitement over the last couple hours, the rain was coming down so hard the noise was almost deafening. Henry stared at his doggy door wanting to go out to use the bathroom but stayed put.

All of a sudden the wind and rain reached such a cacophony that I thought we might all just blow away with the storm, then the power went out and  my heart sank , it wasn’t looking good at all.

9pm January second 2012:

It has been storming for over 12 hours now ,non stop , the worst of the wind had blown through but we were still getting sustained hurricane force winds and trees  and debris were getting blown everywhere.

We were now officially in the dark , although I do admit to a bit of satisfaction to being able to use the generator I had purchased 3 years ago when I was going through my “Prepper” phase.

We were in pretty good shape ,we had the heater going , we had lights and the food in the freezer and fridge were safe for now , I had stockpiled a hundred gallons of fuel , enough to keep us with power for several days on the generator.

We had plenty of food and water in storage , we had become accustomed to keeping a minimum of 6 months worth of good food on hand , and another 6 months of emergency type rations, so we felt fairly self sufficient in the case of an emergency.

As I looked out the window I was startled to see how quickly the lake had risen, it had been a dry winter up to this point , unusually so , and up until a few hours ago  it had a long way to go to even get to normal winter levels, that was a few hours ago, now the lake had easily risen 5 feet , which was both shocking and unnerving.

I got my jacket on and made my way down to the boat house just to check on things and verify how high the water had actually risen and was surprised to find the lake so muddy , I had never seen the lake get muddy , in fact during big rain events the quickly rising water was always crystal clear , fresh looking , you could easily see down several feet with a flash light.

I filled the generator up and went back inside , the plan was to try and get some sleep.  Hanna was huddled in the room with the heater on and the television watching a movie , as the cable was not working either. We were pioneers now , living off the land in battle with mother nature.

As we laid in bed , we could hear the wind actually start to pick up again and the rain as well , as if that were even possible…between the low hum of the generator and the steady beating rain …I slowly started to drift off to sleep…as I started to doze …all kinds of apocalyptic visions danced through my head…towering waves…pounding rain and wind….then just blackness….to be continued!