Pandemonium

It rained all day on Saturday. When I got to HXEB, the back corner of the office was flooding -- the rain had leaked in from the swampy courtyard and under the door in the back. The custodians mopped it up and the piles of cloth and rags held the water back for ... about half an hour. Then the water began seeping in again.

As the teachers and volunteers came in, we had to warn them to stay on the right side of the room -- the back corner was still flooding. The custodians literally spent almost two hours (2-4ish), with mops and a giant water vacumning thing, trying to keep the rainwater from spreading too far into the room.

Each volunteer that came in was soaked, and immediately ran to the bathroom to use the dryers. Sherry's first words upon seeing the crew in the back corner were, "Are we all gonna die?"

Seems like that was a major concern. First the lights flickered. Then they went out altogether for a few seconds; Sherry and I both screamed at the same time. The back corner kept flooding.

At four, I was asked to substitute the art class. I went down, introduced myself, and drew a circle on the board, all in the course of five minutes. Then the lights flickered and went out completely. Literally half a second had passed when I jumped up and yelled, "OK EVERYONE, WE'RE ALL GONNA STAY CAAALM." The kids probably didnt even register the blackout yet. I thought the lights were going to come back, and I'd resume teaching. Um... well, a minute later, the door opened and I heard the admin calling for everyone to leave class. School was closing early. So there I was stuck with a class full of little five year olds, six of which had no parents right there to get them out. Headcounting all the way down the hall, I took them to the office, which was vacated and flooded completely and into the little loby area.

There was massive chaos. All the kids, teachers, parents, admin, were congregated there, yelling and talking and somewhat panicking. There was a metal door barrier thing that apparently had come down automatically, thus sealing off the other end of the building. Amy came rushing over to me, telling me that Bo and her students were locked on the other side. So I told her to stay with the kids, make sure they don't leave, keep them together, then went out into the raging storm to get the other people. The winds were so strong the rain hardly touched the ground; my 114lb. frame was nearly blown away. I finally did find Bo, taking her class of little five year olds out. Screaming at the top of my lungs over the wind, I told them to all go outside and around to the office to wait for their parents.

What followed after was a good forty five minutes of screaming instructions from the top of a chair, frantically calling parents, screaming more directions, keeping an eye on all the young students, sheperding students into the lobby area to wait, making sure no one left the building without the accompaniment of an adult, etc. etc. etc. Meanwhile, the building just got steadily darker. The hallways were pitch black, except for the eerie red glow of the EXIT signs. At five, everyone had left, and my father and I went home.

Along the highway tempest raged on, and the Poe-story scenery continued. Route 18 (the major highway through the town) was entirely dark. All the stores, the traffic lights, everything was out. Trees were knocked over, some uprooted. Electric poles had fallen. Traffic lights swung violently in the air. I called my mom's cell to let her know we were on the way home; she said the whole house was shaking.

We did homework by candlelight, carried flashlights with them into the bathroom. People's basements were flooded. We couldn't open the refrigerator. The whole town sat under a suffocating shroud of silence, anxiety, and impatient worry. It was like a ghost town.

This morning, I woke up to a slightly calmer day. Electricity was back to some people's homes, though a call from the township said that 70% of the town was still affected. My father went out to buy emergency groceries and said that Route 18 was completely flooded and closed down. Tree limbs littered my backyard; the shutter from one of our windows had blown across the lawn. In the afternoon, the power went out for another hour. Just three hours ago, the township called again to say that the water plant had flooded, the water to our homes may be contaminated, and we should boil all water being used for consumption.

And the skies are still gray, and everything is still as silent. We're all waiting...