Charlie the Hurricane
I guess I haven't heard some name other than mine repeated all through the day. I heard my name all through the day only when I was young and my mom used to shout at me all the time: clean ur room, tidy up ur table, make some tea, so on and so on. But this time I've heard "Charlie" almost every 5-minutes in the previous 24 hrs. Every time I switch on my TV I hear abt Charlie, every time I talk with my friends the talk on Charlie comes up, and every time we seem to be waiting for someone its definitely Charlie!
Charlie is the name of the hurricane that's going to hit Orlando. Whoever has named it Charlie (I hope its the name of the guy who predicted its path or something) is really a genius. The whole state knows his name, but sadly, not him (if such a person exists).
Anyways, me and my friends were waiting for Charlie all day yesterday. The only news on TV was on Charlie. I was kinda tired of its name, but was still looking forward to it. People seemed to be scared of it. People were stocking up groceries, water, candles and movies just to be safe. My feeling was that hurricane wud b a big deal: just thunderstorms and rains. But reality seems different. I can really feel why people r so scared!
After I had written the first param Charlie arrived with a bang, I mean a thunderstorm. I had to save my writing and check "it" out. The storms started slowly: first with winds and then with slight showers. But the intensity increased exponentially with time. The winds were perpendicular to the house and were banging on the glass window pane. The window was vibrating so severely Swapnil and I were kinda afraid that the wind might break off the glass pane. We were considering various options if the window broke.
It suddenly stuck me that lights might go out any time now that the hurricane was in full swing. We lit up some candles by buring papers on the electric stove. The lights were out just a few minutes after the candles were glowing.
We shifted our attention back to the window pane. We thought it wud be best if we were sitting in the bedrooms as it wud b much safer there. We entered the bedroom and saw our parking garage's roof torn apart by the winds. We were afraid that the winds wud knock out the roof cover and it wud hit our window. But we sat over there just waiting for the wind to blow away the parking lot's roof.
The storm had abated by 10:30 (after 2 hrs) and the living room window had stopped giving us the creeps. The roof of the parking lot wasn't being ripped apart anymore. So we decided to step out and check out the winds. Boy, were they strong! We came out and went around the neighbourhood. We checked out the parking lot where the roof had fallen. The roof was really light, and it felt ridiculous to imagine that it wud hit the window and break it. A lot of trees had fallen down outrooted. We discovered some missing signboards lying quite a distance away from where they were supposed to be. The whole place was gruesome.
Now that the winds were blowing at a normal pace, Kamal and I felt like having beer in the open. We went out like jerks to a gas station which was obviously closed. Climate was normal now. And we all felt sleepy.
It was a great experience being in the hurricane. But the worst experience was the aftermath of Charlie. I'll write abt it sometime later, if at all I do.
Charlie is the name of the hurricane that's going to hit Orlando. Whoever has named it Charlie (I hope its the name of the guy who predicted its path or something) is really a genius. The whole state knows his name, but sadly, not him (if such a person exists).
Anyways, me and my friends were waiting for Charlie all day yesterday. The only news on TV was on Charlie. I was kinda tired of its name, but was still looking forward to it. People seemed to be scared of it. People were stocking up groceries, water, candles and movies just to be safe. My feeling was that hurricane wud b a big deal: just thunderstorms and rains. But reality seems different. I can really feel why people r so scared!
After I had written the first param Charlie arrived with a bang, I mean a thunderstorm. I had to save my writing and check "it" out. The storms started slowly: first with winds and then with slight showers. But the intensity increased exponentially with time. The winds were perpendicular to the house and were banging on the glass window pane. The window was vibrating so severely Swapnil and I were kinda afraid that the wind might break off the glass pane. We were considering various options if the window broke.
It suddenly stuck me that lights might go out any time now that the hurricane was in full swing. We lit up some candles by buring papers on the electric stove. The lights were out just a few minutes after the candles were glowing.
We shifted our attention back to the window pane. We thought it wud be best if we were sitting in the bedrooms as it wud b much safer there. We entered the bedroom and saw our parking garage's roof torn apart by the winds. We were afraid that the winds wud knock out the roof cover and it wud hit our window. But we sat over there just waiting for the wind to blow away the parking lot's roof.
The storm had abated by 10:30 (after 2 hrs) and the living room window had stopped giving us the creeps. The roof of the parking lot wasn't being ripped apart anymore. So we decided to step out and check out the winds. Boy, were they strong! We came out and went around the neighbourhood. We checked out the parking lot where the roof had fallen. The roof was really light, and it felt ridiculous to imagine that it wud hit the window and break it. A lot of trees had fallen down outrooted. We discovered some missing signboards lying quite a distance away from where they were supposed to be. The whole place was gruesome.
Now that the winds were blowing at a normal pace, Kamal and I felt like having beer in the open. We went out like jerks to a gas station which was obviously closed. Climate was normal now. And we all felt sleepy.
It was a great experience being in the hurricane. But the worst experience was the aftermath of Charlie. I'll write abt it sometime later, if at all I do.
posted by Pi at
4:13 PM
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