Sunday, August 15, 2004

Sunday, the day of rest, was anything but.

As we awoke to the second day of New Reality, again we put our backs into it.

Tree debris rose in streets like bone piles in a grisly graveyard. Empty water bottles and the sharp scent of sap marked the progress of tree crews chewing down streets.

Lines for ice and gas curved like serpents, slithering out into main arteries, where streetlights hung with vacant stares. Shelves at building-supply stores were wiped clean of generators, shingles and plywood. Damaged roofs were clothed in fluttering blue capes like battered superheroes.

Without electric lift stations, sewers backed up into streets and yards. The contents of refrigerators and freezers soured. Homeowners wept openly.

When? we asked. When would power be back?

Neighborly ways flourished with offers of coffee, chain saws and generator power. But heat, humidity and the lack of modern-day essentials -- food, water, gas and air conditioning -- got the better of some, causing tempers to blow like storm-worn transformers.

As city and county officials begged by radio for calm, fistfights broke out at gas stations, and anarchy prevailed at intersections left unprotected by overtaxed police forces.

Reports of price gouging poured in, and cash became a precious commodity. ATMs were depleted. Weary tourists packed up and left, though some stayed to revel in smaller theme-park crowds.

Churchgoers who could maneuver vehicles around the sad memories of oaks went to worship. Prayers for help and solace rose into a cloud-scattered sky that had been a tumbling black caldron two days before.

And help came, in convoys of power trucks plowing along Interstate 4; in semis packed with ice; in an army of law-enforcement officers.

Hope, though, was in short supply where the storm hit hardest, where the leaves of trees crushing houses began to decay, where power was still days away and water in short supply.

The day that began with a blazing sunrise ended under a humid black blanket of stars and mosquitoes. As a scattering of power crept into neighborhoods, the starkness of the devastation flickered on TV sets. The splintered mess of Southwest Florida made us pause and reflect on our own wounds, which seemed superficial by comparison.

Unselfish prayers lifted night’s dark cloak. Lord, we prayed, deliver them from Charley.