"Irene - First, Anticipation and Then, Her Power"

                                                                                       Sydney M. Williams

                                                                                       August 29, 2011

Note from Old Lyme

“Irene – First, Anticipation and Then, Her Power”

“The wind shows how close to the edge we are.”

                                                                            Joan Didion (1934 -) Author

Friday was eerie. The day was warm – perhaps a little too humid – with a clear blue sky. But the knowledge that a major storm was approaching cast a foreboding tone. The waves were a little rougher than usual – the normal green flag had been replaced by yellow – but still OK for my grandchildren who kept dashing into the waves and then letting the water carry them back onto the beach.

Nevertheless, with Irene approaching, the decision was made that afternoon to close the club for the weekend, an obvious decision as Governor Christie had mandated an evacuation of the entire New Jersey coast.

There is a sense of helplessness one feels when confronted with a storm like Irene. Bicycles and toys are stored. Porch, terrace and pool furniture moved under cover, shutters tightened, plate glass taped and cars placed in garages. But one’s house remains exposed, as do the trees that have stood for decades providing shade in the summer and protection from nosy neighbors year round. It is difficult, if not impossible, to be assured that shingles will not be torn from the roof by wet, wind-blown gusts approaching 100 miles an hour. Friday was, as the saying goes, the calm before the storm.

For the past thirty-odd years, we have rented a house during the month of August in the town of Rumson, N.J. where my wife spent her summers growing up. The house we were in was a wonderful old house built around the turn of the previous century, located about a half mile from the beach. There was no concern of the ocean breaching the area, as the land was high and Rumson is separated from the ocean by the Shrewsbury River. There was, however, a concern – a concern that was realized – of losing power.

So late Friday we made some decisions. My son and his family would return to Connecticut; Caroline would stay with a childhood friend who possessed a generator; I would return to New York.

But it was the eeriness of the calm on Friday, mimicked in the stillness of the air that riveted my attention. Such reactions are not uncommon when impending storms approach – even those that are man-made. French nobles in the late 1780s had to know they were unpopular with le public, as did aristocrats in Tsarist Russia, in the months leading up to the revolution of 1917. In the months leading up to the credit crisis in 2007-2008, market volatility dropped and a sense of complacency descended on Wall Street, undetected by all but a few.

However, it is the indiscriminate power that characterizes nature that instills an innate sense of fear. Storms such as Irene cannot be harnessed; we cannot alter their direction; a single storm possesses more energy than man has been able to muster since he exited the cave. They attack rich and poor, black and white, Muslims and Christians – they show no quarter, heed no master and abide by no rules man has created.

We sat on the beach on Friday, realizing Irene was coming and that Americans would die because of her, yet knowing we were powerless to stop her. Irene is just one more reminder of man’s insignificance in nature’s larger scheme. One is reminded of the Earl of Gloucester in the first scene of Act IV of King Lear:

“I’ th’ last night’s storm I such a fellow saw

Which made me think a man a worm. My son

Came into my mind, and yet my mind

Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since.

As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;

They kill us for their sport.”

Sitting alone in my apartment surfing channels on Saturday afternoon it was readily apparent that Mr. Bloomberg’s failure to prepare for the big blizzard last December would not be repeated as Irene roared north. The lesson had been learned. It is better to be over prepared than under. Mayors and governors outdid one another in ordering mandatory evacuations. People in low lying areas were inconvenienced, but caution proved successful in that human tragedies, throughout the path of the storm, were limited. Any death is to be regretted, and certainly the twenty or so whose deaths were attributed to Irene are mourned. But when one considers that the sweep of this storm, with its 500 mile wing-span, affected 65 million people, the loss of life was minimal.

(My personal highpoint on Saturday was seeing on ABC News four of my grandchildren sitting in their minivan, as their mother, my daughter-in-law, was interviewed on their return to Connecticut from the New Jersey shore.)

Man has the ability to forecast and track hurricanes, but we cannot divert them. But anticipation saves lives, as happened in this instance. In contrast, there was little preparation for the infamous Hurricane of ’38, which hit Long Island with winds of 115 miles per hour, and then swept across New England, seventy-three years ago. That storm, admittedly larger, caused 682 deaths.

As Irene passed overhead on Sunday, the sun reappeared briefly, prior to sinking into the west. That reappearance was like an apology for the inconvenience she had caused, but the message remained clear: no matter what technology we create, no matter what pollution we generate, or what weapons we develop nature is bigger than any of us, individually or collectively. It is a sobering thought.