Irene: A Sketch

The first casualty of Hurricane Irene in my cove neighborhood happened three days before the storm arrived when a tree removal crew chopped down a majestic weeping willow, dressed in its lush summer green, from a yard by a house at the point. The willow had been there for several generations, standing as one of the postage stamp trees of West Barrington. But the neighbor had lost a couple of big branches recently – during one of last winter’s nor’easters and, before that, during a heavy wind and rain storm last summer – and given the dire predictions of Irene’s wrath, he was determined not to risk his home for the notoriously weak-rooted willow in our sandy soil.

Most people spent part of Saturday boarding up and removing potential projectiles from their yards, then went to bed as the storm blew in. The power went out in Barrington at 7 a.m. on Sunday and the worst of the surge followed a couple of hours later, as water splashed over the cove’s edge, swamping some roads, spilling over sea walls and creating little lakes in adjacent parks. Despite steady, strong winds for hours afterward and except for one small stretch of street that appeared to endure a mini-twister, causing large trees to topple onto rooftops, sheds and in yards, our neighborhood was mostly spared, and we were once again able to sigh with relief that a hurricane – a.k.a. God’s bowling ball – only delivered a glancing blow.

We were lucky. Watching during the height of the storm from one of the windows in my folks’ place that wasn’t boarded, the Atlantic appeared primal, with breakers crashing in the middle of the bay and surf as high as a one-story house. At one point, between the wind and the rain, the world was just a wild, gray blur, with no way to tell where the water met the land. It felt like being on the smear end of a microscope.

But the worst didn’t last long. Heavy rains eventually subsided and all that was left was to ride out the winds, nap, drink, eat, play board games, and check out the damage when the lull came later in the afternoon. A friend’s boat had been wrenched from its mooring. They discovered it a long way down the channel, with a gash in the hull, in a completely different marina, where someone had lashed it to a dock to spare it further damage. Neighbors and strangers gathered to survey the scene, sharing condolences with people who sat on their porches under houses crowned by downed trees or otherwise enjoying the fresh air, charged with ions that paradoxically made us feel drugged and drowsy. My souvenir from the day was a quahog shell that was tossed onto the small beach at Allin’s Cove, ringed on the inside with a half-inch of the dazzling purple color used to make wampum.

All the world is investing in gold these days, it seems. But its value is merely monetary. Give me a clamshell offered up by a hurricane any day, if only as a reminder of the blessings and fortunes we always take for granted, and in memory of the friends and willows we lose along the way.

How did you pass the time during Hurricane Irene?