Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson [63]
Cohen was known throughout Galveston as a kind of psychotherapist, although the term and profession were not yet common. People of all religions and both sexes came to him to discuss troubles they felt they could disclose only to him, including problems with their sex lives. Everyone knew the rabbi and the stories that had given him near-legendary stature—the scar on his head delivered under unclear circumstances by a rifle butt during a Zulu uprising in Africa, the story of how he had barged alone into one of the city’s most unsavory bordellos to rescue a young woman held captive within, throwing her over his shoulder and bolting back into the night.
He stood now on Broadway as a long line of people struggled past him toward the city. He saw whole families and noticed many carrying hampers of clothing and food and stained-glass lamps and framed photographs, like refugees from a military bombardment—except that the children all seemed delighted. And very muddy.
A lushly planted esplanade of oleander, live oak, and Mexican dagger divided Broadway, but the heavy rains of the past month and the fresh downpours of the morning had turned the esplanade into a wonderfully slippery flume of mud, through which the children stomped and slid despite stern shouts from parents on the adjacent sidewalks.
As Cohen watched, he heard fragments of the story: The sea had risen; it had destroyed the Midway; the bathhouses were about to collapse into the Gulf; the streetcar trestle was so thoroughly undermined it could not possibly stand much longer.
Cohen realized these were indeed refugees. They had left their homes for safer ground.
It was a shock. There had been floods before, but no one seemed to get terribly upset. That’s why most houses, his included, were raised on posts, and why the curbs in some places were three feet high.
He took the stairs to his house three at a time and gathered up as many blankets and umbrellas as he could find, then brought them back down to the street, where he handed them out to the people who seemed most needful, the mothers with babies and toddlers, the elderly who moved so slowly against the wind.
Mollie found a bag of apples and brought it to him. He passed these out to the children, who thanked him gaily. Mud streaked their cheeks and clotted their shoes. Many were barefoot, the boys with their pants rolled to their knees. Cohen had to smile.
He was soaked. He was also shivering, a novelty for September in Galveston. He had no more umbrellas or apples, but he stayed put out of empathy for all the dislocated families, until Mollie ordered him back inside.
The power was out, Cohen saw. With the storm shutters closed, the house was as dark as night. They ate lunch by candle flare.
“We had a storm like this in ’86,” Mollie said, referring to the winds and rain that had reached Galveston from the last of the big Indianola hurricanes. “My father’s store on Market Street was flooded,” she said, casually. She noted, however, that no flood had ever reached Broadway.
With cinematic timing, a sledgehammer of wind struck the house with so much force it knocked plaster from the walls.
“It’s just a little blow,” Mrs. Cohen said, softly, to the children.
She swept the plaster into a small pile. The wind grew louder. Gusts came at shorter intervals, with progressively greater power. Each brought a fresh squall of plaster.
Cohen went to the front door to gauge the storm’s progress, and saw that this time the water had reached Broadway. A shallow current raced along the street among the legs of the refugees. The water seemed to rise even as he watched.
More people crowded the street. It was a parody of the city’s Mardi Gras celebration. In the stormlight everyone looked gray and worn and thoroughly miserable. The streetcars, Cohen realized, had stopped running.
When he looked outside again a few minutes later, he saw that the water now covered the first step of the stairs