Matthew -- the Storm Comes

First dark, "squally" looking clouds  -- all day Thursday the sixth of October, 2016. No wind -- only a little breeze here and there.

Friday morning -- final preparations completed: storm shutters shut, furniture "locked down" outside, all flyable elements secured! Winds dancing around at 10 to 15 miles per hour. All day is a waiting game: power still on, dire warnings on television, internet, radio, and in the streets.

Late afternoon and the winds now start to grind, and release, and grind again --still not very strong. Then the rain begins as each squally if stronger than the last. Television warns that the "outer bands" are now creeping up the coast of Georgia towards Savannah. Still unsure if we are going to take a direct "hit" -- or not. Please -- not!

7:38 the power suddenly blinks off in the rain and medium winds of 30-40 miles per hour. Now am in darkness, seemingly secure, and watching as the dark slowly comes.

Rain picks up steadily -- but I am tired now of watching after three hours, and lie down to sleep. I get up and lie down several times over the next two hours and try to relax. Am fatalistic -- this would be as good as time as any to catch up with Sheila.

Am sleeping soundly now when I hear the loud crack--crack--crack sound of breaking wood, high up in the trees. I get up quickly, not wanting to get crushed if that damn tree is coming down. But curiosity drives me to the back kitchen window. I see the very large limb over my backyard knell in a kind of half broken position -- its tip on the ground, its "knee" still attached to the trunk. It's 1:38 in the morning and the storm is at its peak over Savannah.

The wind accelerates now in tremendous continuous gusting blows, swaying the kneeling branch back and forth -- but it looks like it will stay that way. I watch. For a long time. And still it doesn't really fall; its just drifts back and forth. I wonder if it will be big enough to actually drag the tree itself down -- a tree that is perhaps fifty times its size. Is the wind that strong.

Finally I am tired from watching and fretting and collapse into a kind of glazed half-sleep. I finally awake a to soft plopping sound as that one limb finally separates and comes down. It smoothly tears apart everything underneath it as it descends. a 35 foot high black locust tree -- which used to shade my backyard, a bunch of scrub tree, a metal cabinet, several lines of fencing -- all smoothly crushed to the ground.

And so I sleep. And think the storm will now tail off. It has done its worst. The wind does decrescendo. And I sleep, just a little relieved.

I walk up an hour of so later to two more large swooshing "plops" as two more large limbs fall, already shortened by previous deadfalls, but still heavy -- large -- unstoppable.

I was so very glad I moved my car to a space on the side of my house -- it survived because of sheer luck and just a little foresight.

The aftermath will come with the daylight.