Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson [72]
What he did not realize, apparently, was that the flow now included corpses.
Most likely he had stationed himself at a window that faced west or south; otherwise he would have been aware of the great damage now being done to the beach neighborhoods behind his house, where immense breakers slid over the surface of the tide and broke against second-floor windows.
It was getting dark. He found a candle, lit it, then thought better—he might need the candle later on. He blew it out. There was nothing to do, he decided, but wait out the storm. He still felt unafraid. “I found a comfortable armchair and made myself as comfortable as possible.” He was very glad, however, that his family soon would be snug and dry in the train station at San Antonio. “Being entirely alone, with no responsibility on me, I felt satisfied and very complacent, for I was fool enough not to be the least afraid of wind or water.”
FOR OTHER FATHERS in homes not far from his the afternoon was playing out in rather different fashion. Suddenly the prospect of watching their children die became very real.
Whom did you save? Did you seek to save one child, or try to save all, at the risk ultimately of saving none? Did you save a daughter or a son? The youngest or your firstborn? Did you save that sun-kissed child who gave you delight every morning, or the benighted adolescent who made your day a torment—save him, because every piece of you screamed to save the sweet one?
And if you saved none, what then?
How did you go on?
Mrs. Hopkins
AS LOUISE HOPKINS and her friend Martha played in the yard, they saw more strange things come floating past in the street. There were boxes and boards and bits of clothing, and now children’s toys. Martha went home, fearing that soon the water would be too deep to cross, and indeed soon afterward the level rose to where water flowed into Louise’s yard and into her mother’s treasured garden. The sight of all that brown water destroying her mother’s lovely flowers brought Louise the day’s first sadness.
When Louise went inside, she saw for the first time that her mother was worried about the storm. Mrs. Hopkins was moving her great trove of cooking supplies to the second floor—her sacks of sugar, coffee, and flour (one of the most popular brands was Tidal Wave Flour). Between trips Mrs. Hopkins went to the window to watch for Louise’s two brothers, who that morning had ridden their bicycles to their jobs. “She knew now with the water rising it would be impossible for them to come home the same way,” Louise recalled.
Louise noticed that her kitten, a Maltese, was behaving strangely. The little thing “was restless and kept following me. I believe he was more aware of the approaching danger than I.”
Her brother John arrived safely, and quickly went to work helping his mother transport the supplies to the second floor. Louise helped with the smaller things. Her brother Mason, fourteen years old, was still not home.
Once all the big sacks had been hauled upstairs, Louise’s mother found the family ax and did something that just about took Louise’s breath away forever. Her mother had always been so careful about the house. The house was everything. A home, an income. She kept it spotless, and polished and dusted the floors until they gleamed like the beacon of the Bolivar Light, and if you tracked mud onto these floors you knew you would not see the sunlight for the rest of your living days.
Right there, no warning, her mother lifted the ax over her shoulder and slammed it into the floor. She kept chopping until the holes were big enough to see through.
“I was amazed to see how fast the water came in under the front door and through the holes my mother had cut in the floor,” Louise said. “How quickly the house was filling with water, and how difficult it was for my mother to keep her head out of the water as she reached down into the lower cabinets