Presented by the American Press Institute

Hurricane!

By Eric Douglas

Chapter 1: A storm is coming

“Hey Jayne! Mom said Erin is coming and we have to get ready for her,” Marie called to her older sister outside. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and there was a gentle breeze blowing.

“Who is Erin? I don’t know anyone named Erin,” Jayne replied as she walked toward the house. Jayne was the older of the two sisters, by a year, with shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes.

“I don’t know. She just asked me to get you so we can all talk about what we need to do to get ready for Erin,” Marie said.” Marie stood half a foot taller than her older sister, with short brown hair and deep blue eyes. “She said Dad is coming home from work to talk about it, too.”

The girls’ parents, Nathan and Ann, worked for the Ocean Research Center attached to the North Carolina Aquarium. Nathan worked as the director for the center while Ann was a veterinarian and cared for the marine animals. Their home and their parents’ place of work were located on Roanoke Island in the town of Manteo on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Jayne and Marie found their mother in the kitchen, staring at the shelves when they entered. They could both tell she was thinking about something.

“Mom, who is Erin and when is she getting here?” Jayne asked.

“Have we met her?” Marie asked. “I don’t remember anyone named Erin.”

“What? Oh, probably tomorrow night. Erin is coming across the Caribbean right now and then they expect she will turn east. Looks like Erin will hit here in about 36 hours or so,” Ann answered without turning to look at the girls.

“Is she in a boat or something? Or a really slow airplane?” Jayne asked. “It sounds like you don’t know exactly when she will get here.”

“Not exactly, sweetie. It’s never an exact science,” Ann answered.

“Science? Mom, what are you talking about?” Marie asked. Before either girl could figure out what was going on, their father walked in.

“Hi guys, I’m glad you’re all here,” Nathan said. “Girls, I want you to get some things together and be ready to take off. Pack three or four changes of clothes and a couple of your favorite things. We might have to go to a shelter for safety. Bring along anything you can’t replace.”

“Dad, what are you talking about?” Jayne said, growing more confused by the moment. “Erin is coming to visit. I thought we were getting ready for her. And now you’re telling me to get ready to run away?”

“Is Erin a bad person?” Marie asked. “Are we going to hide from her?”

“What? What are you girls talking about?” Ann asked, finally turning to face her family.

“Girls, do you know what Erin is?” Nathan asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what Erin is’? Isn’t she a girl? Don’t you mean who?” Marie asked.

“Girls, come in here and sit down. I’m sorry, but your mom and I thought you knew what was going on. We probably assumed too much,” Nathan said, moving toward the family room. When everyone was seated, he continued.

“Girls, I’m really sorry I haven’t been clear with both of you,” Ann said. “I’ve been thinking about what we needed to do and I didn’t take the time to explain it to you. Erin isn’t a person coming to visit. Erin is the name for a hurricane coming this way. It will probably hit the island we live on sometime tomorrow evening. So we have to get ready for it.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Nathan said. “You girls haven’t been through a hurricane yet. I didn’t think about you not knowing what’s going on.” The family had moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina less than a year before so Ann and Nathan could take their new jobs, and the four had yet to face a storm.

The Outer Banks are barrier islands. They are natural sand bars that slow down storms approaching the coast. In spite of being one of the larger communities on the chain of islands, Manteo is still a small town. And living on barrier islands puts residents in the direct path of approaching storms from the Atlantic Ocean.

“What exactly is a hurricane?” Marie asked.

“It’s a big storm – right, Dad?” Jayne answered.

“Yes. A hurricane is a very big storm,” Nathan agreed.

“We’ve been through big storms before,” Jayne said. “I remember that one time, it rained for three days. There was thunder and lightning the whole time. We didn’t have to go anywhere for that one.”

“Honey, that was a big storm, but a hurricane is much bigger than that,” Ann said. “Hurricanes have really fast wind with lots of rain and they cause flooding, too. They can do lots and lots of damage. Really big storms can push houses down.”

“They tear down power lines, too,” Nathan said. “Out here on the islands, they push sand dunes over the roads and even tear them up. That’s why we have to get ready.”

Marie started to cry. “Mom, I was excited we were going to get a visitor. Now I’m scared. Are we going to be okay?”

“Yes, honey, that’s why we have to get ready before Erin gets here,” Ann said as she moved closer to her daughter and hugged her. “But we’re going to be fine.”

“Mom? Is Erin going to destroy our house and tear down the aquarium, too?” Marie asked. “What will happen to the animals?”

“I don’t think anything bad will happen, honey, but there is no way of knowing. We will just have to wait until the storm gets here and we see what happens,” Ann said.

Chapter 2: Why is it called Erin?

The Outer Banks are low islands, not much higher than the ocean itself. To keep the water out when big storms hit, people often build their houses on stilts.

The girls’ new home wasn’t a huge vacation house designed to sleep 20 tourists who came to the islands for the summer. It was small but comfortable. Wood shingles protected the house from the wind and the water. Decks wrapped all the way around the house on all three floors. On top of the roof was another small deck, called a widow’s walk. From there, the girls could see all over the island. Roanoke Island is surrounded by calm water that looks like a big lake, called a “sound.” The sound is connected to the ocean by gaps between the islands known as inlets.

Jayne and Marie were in their third-floor bedrooms packing some clothes when they heard the doorbell ring. A few minutes later, they heard footsteps on the stairs leading to their rooms, so they stopped what they were doing and looked out of their doors.

“Hey guys! What are you doing here?” Jayne asked when she realized their two best friends had arrived together. Javier was younger, in the fifth grade with Marie, while Monique was in the sixth grade with Jayne. The girls had met Javier and Monique just a few days after moving to the Outer Banks. Since then, the foursome had been inseparable.

The Outer Banks are a summertime vacation spot with lots of families visiting while school is out. The number of people living there all year around is pretty small. The kids who live there tend to know each other, and they attend the same small school.

“I came over to see how you two are doing. This is your first big storm, right?” Monique asked. She was taller than Jayne and Javier, and had deep brown skin and dark brown eyes. “I’ve been through this a couple of times. I thought I would help you out.”

“It’s my first hurricane, too,” Javier said. He had moved to the island with his mom just a few weeks before the girls arrived. Javier was born in Honduras, but came to the United States with his mother, a veterinarian assistant who worked with the girls’ mother, Ann. He was taller than Jayne but shorter than Marie, with short, dark hair and light brown eyes.

“You look like you’re packing up. You guys going to leave?” Monique asked.

“Dad said probably,” Marie answered. “He wasn’t completely sure, but he wanted us to be ready, just in case.”

“That makes sense. I do the same thing, but we almost never leave, unless it’s a Category 3 or something like that,” Monique said. “Your house has been here several years, so it’s been through a few storms. It will be safe, I’m sure.”

“I came over to say goodbye,” Javier said. “We’re going to evacuate in the morning.” Javier said. “What did you mean about a Category 3? Do these things come in sizes?”

“There are all kinds of different storms,” Monique said. “The smallest ones are tropical depressions. Then there are tropical storms. When they become hurricanes, they can be Category 1 through Category 5.”

“And each one gets stronger, right?” Jayne asked. “I was just looking at some stuff online about them.”

Jayne showed her friends a website on the tablet she used for homework. It had a chart showing the types of storms and how they are rated. One of the most important things they saw was how fast the winds come with each storm.

“It’s always windy. We can fly kites all year long,” Marie asked, gesturing around her. “How is this different?”

“I think the winds around here are 10 to 15 miles an hour,” Jayne said. “This chart says hurricane winds are between 74 and 95 miles an hour. That’s faster than the speed limit on the interstate!”

“And that’s just a Category 1 hurricane,” Monique agreed. “They can get up to 150 miles an hour in a Category 5 storm.”

“How big is Erin?” Javier asked, his eyes growing wide.

“The weather people say it will be a Category 1 storm when it gets here,” Monique said. “That’s a strong storm, but we’ve been through those before. Of course, it could always change. Sometimes they get bigger or smaller just before they hit land. You never really know until it gets here.”

“So we don’t know how bad Erin is going to be?” Javier said.

“I think the weather people are pretty good at knowing what is going on,” Monique said, trying to reassure her friend. She could tell he was getting nervous.

“What I don’t get is why everyone is calling the storm Erin. Where did that come from?” Marie asked, changing the subject.

“I wondered that, too,” Jayne said, reading from her tablet. “The website says there are six lists of names. They change the list every year. When there’s a big storm, they don’t use that name any more and replace it on the list. Remember Hurricane Katrina a few years ago, and then Hurricane Sandy? Those names were retired.”

“Makes sense that they are all girls’ names,” Javier said with a grin. Marie playfully hit him on the arm for that one.

“They aren’t all girls’ names. There are boys’ names on the list, too,” Jayne said as she continued reading.

“I’m just glad it’s not named Marie,” Marie said. “Who would want a storm named after them?”

Chapter 3: Leaving Dad behind

“So what’s it like?” Marie asked.

“What’s what like? Riding out a hurricane?” Monique asked.

Marie simply nodded. She wanted to be brave, but she was still nervous.

“It’s kind of scary, especially the first time,” Monique said. “The winds are pretty loud and they’ll make your house sway back and forth. It sounds like a jet airplane is just outside.” She explained that they would have to protect the windows and doors by covering them with boards. The high winds pick up anything loose on the ground, and it can be pretty dangerous when stuff goes flying.

“How long does your house sway? It is like an earthquake? Those are usually over in a minute or two,” Javier asked. He and his mother lived in California for a few years after leaving Honduras, and they had been through a few earthquakes.

“It depends on how fast the storm is moving,” Monique explained. “If it’s a slow-moving storm, it can go on all day. If it’s a fast-moving storm, the worst of it can be over in a few hours.”

“What do you mean by ‘a fast-moving storm’? The news said Erin’s winds are 75 miles an hour,” Marie asked.

“Hurricanes are big circles,” Monique said, moving her hand in a counter-clockwise direction. “They aren’t like storms that move straight across the country. The winds are moving at 75 miles an hour or more, but the eye of the storm only moves 10 to 20 miles an hour.”

“This storm has an eye?” Javier asked.

“That’s what they call it, but the eye of the storm is just the middle of the storm,” Monique said. “It’s actually pretty calm in the eye. If it crosses right over you, it might fool you into thinking the storm is over. It isn’t. The second part of the storm is coming up behind you. And the winds will be moving the other direction this time.”

“What do you do during the storm?” Jayne asked. “Do you just watch television and stay inside?”

“Probably not,” Monique said. “Most of the time, the power goes out in the middle of the storm. Power lines get blown down a lot of the time.”

“Why would you stay here in the middle of a big storm like that? It sounds pretty scary to me,” Marie said.

“We stay around to take care of our house. We want to make sure everything is okay,” Monique said. “Because we’re on an island, sometimes you can’t get back out here for a few days. Mom, Dad and I want to be close to our house and Dad’s store, so we can take care of things.”

“What about food? If the power is out, how do you eat?” Jayne asked.

“We have a hurricane survival kit,” Monique explained. “We keep batteries and propane for the grill. We have lots of extra water and food that doesn’t have to be refrigerated to keep it fresh. We also have a small generator that makes electricity. It won’t run the whole house, but it can run the lights and things like that.”

“Sounds like you and your family are really prepared for the storm,” Ann said. The girls’ mother had come up the stairs, but the four friends were so interested in their conversation that none of them had heard her.

“We try to be, Mrs. Andrews,” Monique said. “But like my dad says, you never know what’s going to happen.”

“I’m sure he’s right about that,” Ann said. “Thanks for coming over to talk to the girls. But now, it’s time for you and Javier to go home and get ready. The wind is already picking up outside and the ocean is getting rougher. Girls, we’re going to leave to head inland shortly. I was able to get us a hotel room to ride out the storm.”