Dan’s Papers September 2, 2011 danshamptons.com Page 100 (continued from previous page)
along the line of boats in their slips. The level of the harbor is quite high, just a foot below the boardwalk, so the decks of the boats are about three feet above the boardwalk. In the sky there are bolts of lightning and some thunder. We hurry back home. On the computer, I see there is an orange box over eastern Long Island. Tornado watch. Should we have evacuated? It’s too late now. SUNDAY MORNING—3 a.m. What is happening? I get up and look out the window. In the glow of the streetlights across the street, I can see there has not yet been a surge. The boats are still tied up in their slips. But on the street, off to the right in front of
some overgrowth, there are five cars parked all in a row. Nobody ever parks overnight in front of the boats. What is this? I remembered seeing them arriving there just before we went to bed. And they are still there. What is this all about? I can only theorize. Maybe the people who drove these cars here are sleeping in the boats. It would make sense. Things are going to get real bad in the morning. They’d be aboard. They could start them up, back them out and head out to sea to drop anchor and ride out the storm, then come back when it’s over. I go back to bed. Then it occurs to me why the cars are not parked adjacent to the boats, but down from them. If the boats come over DansPapersAd17Apr11_Qtr.pdf 5/2/11there, 10:56:29 AM the boardwalk, and if cars are right they
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Hurricane
Watching the surf at Main Beach, East Hampton
will… could this be? SUNDAY MORNING—7 a.m. We lay in bed a long time, listening to the sound of a soft rain on the windows. The wind comes up for some gusts then settles back down. Then there are more gusts. Pussycat gusts. After awhile, I get up and go to the window. The boats are rising. But the winds are a tropical storm out there. Thirty miles an hour or so. Not hurricane strength. It’s a nice pussycat Hurricane. I go online. There is an orange box over eastern Long Island. Tornado watch, it says inside the box. Again. How about an earthquake again? We haven’t had one of those in a week. I tell my wife that I am getting dressed and going downtown to see what the damage is. “You aren’t supposed to go outdoors,” she says. She reminds me that the hurricane is supposed to arrive at 10. “It’s not even here yet.” “I’m a reporter,” I tell her. She rolls over and snuggles under the covers. I shrug and get back in and fall asleep with her. I look out the window just before 10 and see trees bending a little sideways as a brief gust comes through with a little whine. Then comes the surge, right on schedule. The hurricane is coming up through New Jersey, has crossed Staten Island and is making a landing at Coney Island. It’s here. So says my computer. But the surge in front of our house is at most four feet. That’s it. The boats not only don’t make the boardwalk, they don’t even flinch. Some hurricane. I go downstairs and turn on the TV. Channel 2, New York. It’s a reporter in the Battery downtown who says that the sea never rose up over the seawall there. “No people are about,” she says. “And just a few branches have fallen from the trees.” She jumps. Looks offscreen. “There’s one that almost hit me now.” My wife comes down. I wonder if we got The New York Times, she asks? I look at her amazed. We get the Times delivered on weekends, in a plastic sleeve down at the end of the driveway. How could this possibly have been delivered? In a lull in the storm, I run down to the bottom of the driveway. It’s there. A deliveryman has come by and tossed it out the side of his car at approximately 5 a.m. as he or she drove up the street. “Not even the worse for wear,” I say bringing it into the livingroom. I pull it out of its sleeve (continued on page 108)