The "eye" of 1983

With hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans and the Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama coastline, I've been thinking about the time the eye of hurricane Alicia passed directly over my house in Baytown, TX. It was 1983. August the 18th to be precise. I'll set the stage for you:

1. Terms of Endearment, Risky Business and Flashdance were on the big screen.
2. The Supreme Court just declared abortion restrictions unconstitutional.
3. Sally Ride was the first woman in space aboard the Challenger.
4. These cool things called Compact Disks [sic] were just being released.
5. Crack cocaine was invented in Columbia.
6. Torch Song Trilogy won a Tony.
7. Parker Stevenson married Kirstie Alley.
8. And I was 13. A freshmen at Ross S. Sterling High School.

I remember the day quite clearly. The hurricane hit in the late evening and I slept through most of it. I was awakened by my mother in the early morning who thought for sure that the large pine tree next to my window would fall directly on my head and kill me. The area where we lived wasn't considered "coastal" by any means, but our proximity to the bayou that was fed by the Gulf of Mexico was always a flood concern. Alicia had a 10.5 foot tidal surge, and we happened to be exactly 9 feet above sea level. This meant that roughly, there'd be about a foot and a half of water in our house if predictions were correct.

In Texas, almost all homes are "ranch" style, which means that there is only one level in the entire home. No basement. So in order to save our appliances and electronics (especially that 8-track!), we resorted to milk crates. My father, who owned a restaurant, always had a HUGE supply of the perfectly square, industrial strength plastic crates in which our milk supplier shipped its goods. Freezer, TVs, refrigerator, couches, washer/dryer, etc. were all given the 12-inch 'Lift de Leche'. I'm sure the remaining five inches were left to the hurricane god(s). Though we got nearly a foot of water all around the exterior of our house, it only seeped through the brick and sandbags we had in the door frames. Our furniture was spared.

Aside from high water and blowing trees, the thing that I remember most about Alicia is that the eye passed directly over our house. In a span of about 15-20 minutes, the conditions went from nearly black clouds with blinding lightening, torrential rain and flying debris to absolute silence. No wind. No rain. Then, almost miraculously, blue sky. It was as if someone had turned the storm off with a switch. Neighbors slowly waded (yes waded) out of their houses into the flooded front yards of the neighborhood. For whatever reason (I'm assuming something related to barometric pressure), I could hear neighbors talking clearly from 10-12 houses down the street. It was quite bizarre to witness such turmoil under such conditions. We were allowed to examine a hurricane's devastation while it was happening. Soon, the families creeped back inside, the sky darkened, and the South East side (always the worst) of Alicia gave us her wrath.

Our family was well-sheltered, and we suffered only minor damages. Trees were broken and twisted in unnatural ways, things floated in the pool that shouldn't have, and lost little creatures crawled and slithered in places they weren't normally found. I hope that everyone in New Orleans and elsewhere are soon surveying their damages as we did shortly after the storm--bruised, but still alive to be thankful.