'what am i supposed to call this?'

by now this post is long overdue, and i'll admit i don't feel like writing it. but it is somehow, a necessity, and will probably be cut and pasted into a mass e-mail. which seems like a shitty move but i feel like a skipping record on an old victrola.

monday was our first day back at school. kim and i carpooled together, and the skies didn't darken until after lunchtime. the rain was hard but nothing spectacular, and the weather reports said that the remnants of hurricane gaston would probably yield about 4 inches at most. no biggie.

right before we left NK around 4 things got into a tizzy with a tornado watch announced. remaining school activities got cancelled. we hopped on interstate 64, tuning in to WRVA to listen for more on the weather. traffic reports started reporting both 64 and I-95 as "virtual parking lots", so i got off the interstate and headed towards richmond on route 60. there was some standing water at some points as we got closer to the city.

as we hit the eastern part of downtown, traffic started to back all the way up. we inched along main street for about an hour and covered about three blocks. it wasn't until about 13th street that things started to look a little scary. water was rushing down the curbs and people were trying to avoid the outermost sides of the road to stay away from it. we kept inching forward and stopped at the light at the fateful intersection of 15th and main. this was later known as the "epicenter" of the downtown flooding.

we went through several cycles of the light without moving, because i didn't want to block the intersection and past it all cars were at a complete standstill. a couple times i asked kim if she thought i should go; i wonder how things would have changed if we had.

it seemed like the rain went from an inch or two on the ground to actual swells in an instant. i can remember looking to the right at an actual wave of water and debris coming down 15th and turning onto main as if it had the right of way. something heavy and big hit the front of my car and my stomach dropped. i put my foot on the gas, hesitantly at first, but then more insistently. even flooring the accelerator completely yielded no results, other than my tires spinning in the rising water.

we sat still and watched the water rise - i'm not sure what we were waiting to happen. i looked over kim's shoulder to see a GRTC bus (#201, i remember) coming directly at her side of the car. i tried flooring it again, with again, no results. it was so bizarre, because the was floating, but i remember thinking that it was going pretty fast. it took a steady and direct path directly into kim's door.

i had been dialing 911 frantically with no response, but just after the bus hit us i finally got through. i was on the phone with the dispatcher when car to our left slid into my door, mirroring the movement of the bus just a moment before. i was babbling: "we just got hit again, the water is over my hood" and i can't remember anything the dispatcher said to me. i can't, however, forget watching the water rise as it slowly covered my hood and began to hit the windshield.

the next thing i do recall is kim's scream and her pointing to the floor. the water had begun to seep into my car through - what, the floorboard, i guess? - and was pooling under out feet. i threw myself against my door and it opened, and i found myself up to my chest in freezing, rushing water. kim climbed through my door, too, but i don't remember that, either. the lady in the car who had hit our right side got out, as well. she was standing about five feet from me, and then all of a sudden she wasn't. she was swept off her feet and we saw the current take her away. this is the exact moment that i first thought we were going to die.

for a minute we stood completely motionless, clinging to my car. we heard people calling to us from the back stairs of velvet, just across the street, but we couldn't get there through the current. i screamed at kim to just follow me as i began inching my away along first my car, and then the cars behind us. i remember thinking that i hoped the drivers wouldn't be mad that i had left my car in the middle of the intersection, and wondering if i should leave my keys with claudette or not.

it probably took is about ten minutes for us to inch down the street toward the farmer's market, mincing along in bare feet as pieces of the asphalt began breaking off and striking our legs underneath the water. we went from car to car trying to hold onto anything we could - hood, door handles, antennae. some of the cars were already abandoned and started to float. other cars still had passengers, desperate people who beckoned for us to get in with them or just stared wordlessly at us, eyes wide as marbles.

initially i wanted to try to make it to the first building on our left - a carpet and rug store with a bright orange sign. the closest thing to us, however, was the newly-renovated main street train station, but i remember looking across at it and the waterfall cascading down the stairs, and thinking there was no way we could make it there. at one point a brick (i think) hit my heel, and i buckled and slipped. i was in the water past my shoulder but managed to snag someone's rearview mirror on the way down, and i hauled myself upright again.

people were calling to us from the top of the steps, though, and about 8 people had formed a human chain out into the current where we were. they were trying to reach out to a woman in front of me who was clinging to a car with one hand, the other arm wrapped around a baby who was clinging to her shoulder. she started slipping and went under the water just as one of the people broke from the chain and grabbed her. i sloshed toward them and linked arms with the man, trying to help, but he told me to grab the other end of the chain instead. i looked back for kim and saw she was a few car lengths away, though, and went back to her. together we clung to cars and made it against a wall that bordered the train station stairs, and we made our way up them, gripping the handrail.

it was when finally when we reached the top of the stairs and a stranger enveloped me in her arms that i lost it. i sobbed and she kept murmuring, "it's okay. we saw it all but you're okay." when she let go of me my first instinct was to climb. i pushed open the lobby doors and stood, staring in horror at a good foot of standing water covering the station floor. i grabbed kim's hand and dragged her to a staircase on our left, and we climbed until the steps ended - it turned out to be the third floor. i just felt like i needed to get as far away from the water as possible.

there were maybe 15 people on the third floor with of us, soaked and crying. my tears had tried up and i felt like a zombie, wandering around the waiting area trying over and over to get a call through on my cell phone. i heard ringing and thought i was hallucinating, until i followed the sound to a pay phone. i must have been really out of it because i could swear the man on the other end called me by name. he asked me what was going on in the station and i answered all his questions. he thanked me and hung up. i have no idea who he was.

i found my calling card -i guess i had slung my purse over my shoulder when we abandoned claudette- and
managed to dial out on the pay phone, calling first my dad and then trying to track down julia and cheri, who i knew might be in the area. my dad had no idea anything was even going on. while on the pay phone trying to get through to my roommates, kim ran up to me and told me to get off the phone. the way she spoke to me made my heart stop and i hung up the phone and let her lead me to the balacony, where suddenly everyone had crammed. it was then that i smelled the gas. the station officials thought a gas line has ruptured in the building and didn't know what to do - we couldn't stay inside but couldn't leave, either.

we all huddled on the balcony for maybe half an hour. most of the people were lined up against the edge, peering over the side watching the people trapped below. i went forward once and caught sight of a lady standing on top of her sinking car with her child in her arms as a floating crane started coming towards them, and i turned away.

the rain was still coming down in sheets and it had begun to thunder. we heard a loud crack and what i thought was smoke filled the air. people at the edge of the balcony began to scream and i assumed something outside had been struck by lightning. a few moments later i found out that this was the sight and sound of the carpet and rug building collapsing across the street. this is the second point in which i thought we were going to die.

we were allowed back in the building off the balcony when someone determined there was no gas leak - the smell was the odor of gas leaking from the tanks of the cars that were sinking or submerged. we talked to a few people trapped there with us, and i tried to use the phone some more. murmurs began going around that amtrak was trying to clear a track so that we could get out of there on a train.

an amtrak official finally came out and announced that we had to evacuate because they were concerned for the structural integrity of the building. we were shephered onto an amtrak truck about an eight full of passengers heading to massachusetts, who looked very confused when about thirty bedraggled, sometimes shoeless or shirtless richmonders ascended on their express car. we stood on the tracks at the station for awhile as they tried to clear water from the tracks. the train began to move very slowly, and puttered to a stop after about 3/4 mile's travel. this was as far as we could go, because the tracks were flooded. by then it was pitch black outside. i was petrified that we were on top of a bridge, but the conductor kept assuring us we were on stable ground. there was nothing to see out the windows, as a literally powerless city lay under a blanket of darkness.

we were told we would have to wait for the water to go down before we could move again, so we settled in for the night. i tried to sleep but couldn't, too restless and keyed up. my heart jumped at the sight of lights in the air, but then plummeted as i realized what it was a rescue chopper searching for survivors in the water. watching their searchlights cut through the night, i didn't want to think about what could be happening below us. i kept trying to call and text people, and was slightly hysterical because i could not get ahold of julia.

i must have passed out, because the next thing i really remember was it getting light out. the conductor came on around 6am and said the water had subsided enough for the train to move into a nearby trainyard, where buses would hopefully be able to make it to pick us up. and so it went. i arrived back at my home to my overexuberant wonderdog about eighteen hours after leaving work the afternoon before.

claudette, my car, became almost famous. cheri texted me when we stuck on the train that she had seen her on the news, submerged at near the intersection where we left her. around dinnertime yesterday i finally got word that she had been towed to the southside of richmond, so jules and i took off in my rental car. when we finally managed to locate her, i teared up a little. i should have pictures soon, and they're not pretty. besides the body impact from the two collisions when we were in the car, she's pretty battered. it took the two of us to wrench the door open to see that the entire interior car coated in several inches of thick, slimy muck. my backseat was no longer connected to my car, and we couldn't pry the hood open for love or money. my insurance inspector should be getting back to me in the next day or so, but i think it's safe to say that claudette is permanently out of commission.

my afore-mentioned rental vehicle is a 15 foot, extended cab chevy silverado - the most gi-normous pickup truck ever and the only available car. there are no rentals left in the greater richmond area, and there is a wait list for vehicles coming from other part of the state, so i know i am lucky to have wheels at all. however, this afternoon in the grocery store parking lot, i managed to steer this 1/2-ton beast too tightly out of my parking spot ad clipped the back of the car parked next to me. that's two insurance claims in 2 days, if you're keeping track.

i obviously didn't make it to school yesterday and i called in today. i've having some isues dealing with how surreal everything feels. i know how lucky i am. they know of 5 flooding fatalities so far and there are still a lot of people missing. it was easily the scariest experience of my life, and it's hard for me to try to explain it to people. i get frustrated when they don't seem to see the magnitude of this event - when they can't envision the scenes that i can't get out of my head.

but i am alive, and okay, and so is kim, and those are the important things.

the one-two combination of emailing out my flood story and following it with my birthday party evite was not an intended sucker punch.