Texas Update 5: Thunder

(Feb. 25: No power to send this email.) 

Huge full moon here tonight. 

Started work at 6 am. Gusts of wind all day, 40 mph regularly, up to 60. The windmill sounds like a helicopter taking off. Worked until about 1pm, at which point the power went out. 

Soon a generator was running a power strip, but no electricity otherwise, no water, no heat. Finished out my shift with an assist from the generator for critical patients. 

At 230 pm, night shift arrived and prepared to work in the dark against the wind and cold. The front door was battened down, headlamps and lanterns were found, hot disks heated to replace heat pads in the baby animal enclosures. Work done, I was called into receiving. The computers were down, it was hard to find volunteers, and five rescues calls had come in. One of my roommates and I hopped into the white pickup work truck, packing a pile of crates, nets, gloves, towels, and blankets. We stopped into maintenance to ask if the guys had anything heavy to weigh down the bed of the truck and keep us from blowing around the hills. They said 'be careful - to make a difference in a truck that size we'd need a few thousand pounds.'

If it was going to be a hairy ride I wanted to drive, and that was fine with my roommate, who had already survived going out that morning. The truck was a heavy gas-guzzling monster; I could feel the wind, but wasn't pushed around or taken by surprise, and nary a fishtail in sight. We were both glad to be out in the land of afternoon daylight, electricity, and running water.

The rescues were uneventful; mostly easy animal pick-ups and no-shows. The moon rose as we drove back to the rescue, a full bright silver disk illuminating the sky and road. The dusky darkness of the Texas night was erased, streaks of moonlight and silver shadows crossing the landscape. 

Writing this now, I can hear a sound like rain and thunder outside in the dry moonlit night. Fierce wind batters the roof and walls with the bamboo that grows taller than the roof. Leaves rhythmically striking the panes and slats sound like rain, gusts thumping the stalk against the roof resonates like thunder.