Sounds of the storm

Hurricane Irene blew past our area overnight Saturday, causing relatively minor damage in our immediate area, unlike other places that were more directly in the path of the storm. I spent much of Sunday afternoon cleaning up the little sticks and small branches that littered our yard and cleaning leaves and debris out of the swimming pool. Somehow, I never quite managed to find the motivation to get my iPod and listen to my backlog of podcasts, so I spent the afternoon listening to the sounds of the neighborhood. The neighborhood was filled with sounds that afternoon…the whine of leaf blowers being used by neighbors to clean up their yards was common, as was the rhythmic humming of the cicadas in the trees and the rustle of the lingering wind in the leaves. There were other sounds, too. At least one neighbor ran a lawn mower, and in the distance, I thought I heard the sounds of a chainsaw or two, cutting up some of the larger debris left in the wake of the storm.

It was all a big contrast to the sounds during the night. I woke up about 2am, which was apparently when the storm was at its strongest in our area. The power was flickering, causing various electronics to make noises as they cut on and off with the power fluctuations. After a few minutes, the power went out completely (it would remain off until about 11am), and the house fell silent (funny how you don’t notice how much noise our appliances make until the power goes off and they stop running). I lay in bed and listened to the sounds of the storm outside. It was strange not to hear any sounds of traffic (even at that time, there is usually at least some traffic on the Capital Beltway, the interstate highway that circles DC, which is just over a block from my house), but it was anything but silent outside. There was the steady roar of the wind through the trees of the neighborhood, punctuated by the occasional howl of a stronger gust. The rain rattled on the rooftop and pelted the windows as the wind whipped it against the house. Outside our bedroom, the bamboo that grows along the property line scratched along the windows and walls of the house.

Because the storm passed by in the middle of the night, it was not a visual experience for me. Instead, my personal impressions of this storm are all about the sounds it made, together with those sounds that disappeared because of it. I’m glad that it resulted in so little damage in our area, but this was still a devastating storm in so many other places, and my thoughts go out to those who are still coping with the aftermath. Hopefully, they will be able to pick up the pieces soon, and get back to their lives.