I’ve never seen anything like it.
And that’s not hyperbole. That isn’t a shock statement. I’ve never, in my 44 years of living, experienced what I experienced in Augusta Thursday night into early Friday morning.
Hurricane Helene came through the Savannah River area with hellish intentions. I grew up in the midwest for the first 26 years of my life, so I’m no stranger to crazy weather. I lived in what they call “Tornado Alley,” so I’ve seen my fair share of high-wind episodes.
I remember a snow and ice storm back in October 1997, I believe, that knocked out the city’s power for maybe more than two weeks. Back then, you didn’t feel the impact of that in the same way you feel it now, because we weren’t so dependent upon technology as we are today.
But Hurricane Helene was different.
I used to want to be a meteorologist when I was a kid. That desire was birthed out of my fear of storms. At around age 8, I learned to read weather maps with proficiency and how to make sense of what the radars were showing me. But I did all this so I could know when I needed to run to my parents’ room at night so as to ward off any fears generated by night time thunderstorms.
I never made good on my childhood weather man dreams, but I still know my way around a weather radar and a cold front. And as I watched Helene gain strength and speed — and the more she seemed stubborn to follow the Atlanta-based inland trajectory that was being forecasted — I began to start feeling uneasy about the implications for the Augusta area.
Every time I looked at Helene’s path, it looked like the eye of that thing was making a bee-line for our area. When I went to bed Thursday night, I did so, not knowing exactly what to expect, but pretty convinced that this wasn’t just going to be an extended rain shower as some were thinking.
At about 3 a.m. Friday, my suspicions were confirmed.
The rain pelted down on our rooftop louder with each passing minute. The wind’s incessant howling and wheezing taunted us as we tried to stay as calm and still in our bedroom as possible. I once was part of a storm in Nebraska that boasted 85 mph straight-line winds. That was symptomatic of a tornado that swept through the area.
That tornado only lasted about 5-10 minutes. What we experienced early Friday morning was the equivalent of that times 3-4 hours.
It takes a lot to rattle or shake me, but I was unashamedly rattled and shook Friday. I felt helpless. I could hear the crackle of trees that sounded like they were being snatched up by the roots.
I heard loud bumps and thuds seemingly up against our house all night long. Then the power went out, which meant there was no use trying to turn on any lights to see what you could see. The neighborhood — and most of the city — was engulfed in an eerie, rambunctious darkness that was anything but silent.
At times, I found myself just waiting and bracing myself for something to come crashing through a window or diving into our home through the roof. Thankfully, it never happened. But it wasn’t until daybreak when I realized how close we were to telling another story.
A tree in our backyard did, indeed, fall, and it just barely missed the house. And when I say “barely,” I mean that in the strictest sense.
Just about 12 hours earlier, I was writing about how, despite Helene’s threats, high school football will still be played in much of the area Friday night. But, now that I know that at least 200,000 folks in the Augusta area woke up Friday morning without power, including many schools also with damage, I can’t imagine that football games are the highest of priorities right now.
As daybreak approached, Helene’s magnitude manifested itself in dramatic fashion.
I drove around to see huge trees pulled from their roots, some laying right on top of people’s homes and cars.
While I still had a some cell phone signal, I watched report after report on social media of people facing the reality of losing their homes and vehicles and other possessions. Several of my church members reported flooding. One had to take shelter at a neighbor’s house because a tree rudely welcomed itself into her home
via the roof.
People already struggling to make ends meet and feed their families are now having to figure out how to replace vehicles, repair homes and replenish their refrigerators once their food spoils.
Every neighbor I’ve talked to who has been in Augusta much longer than I have, said they’d never experienced anything like this in decades of living here.
Unfortunately, we won’t escape this episode without loss of life. Earlier Friday, I read where there were 11 confirmed fatalities across the CSRA. Because I don’t have reliable wifi at the time of writing this, I don’t know how up-to-date that count is. But, in a situation like this, one loss of life is too much.
Now, Helene has trudged her way up toward Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio and is a shell of the version of herself that ravaged Florida and Georgia just a few hours prior. And, almost as a cruel tease, the sun speaking through the remnant of clouds, and it looks like the rest of Friday is going to be a beautiful day.
But for thousands of Augusta-area residents, it’ll be anything but. In fact, though the storm is gone, we’ll be digging out of its resulting carnage for days, weeks, maybe even months to come.
At some point, I’ll get back to tracking stats and analyzing the performances of our local athletes. But for now, I wish only one thing for all our readers — safety.
Safety and the ability to find nuggets of goodness in the midst of this Mother Nature-sponsored tragedy.
Be careful out there, Augusta.
Gabriel Stovall is the sports editor of The Augusta Press. He can be reached at gabriel@theaugustapress.com.
