Here is a letter my dad sent me this morning, I wanted to share it with all of you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We prepared for Odile, expecting a full force menace within the next twelve hours. Whether it hit us straight on or missed us by a few hundred miles or if it would arrive as a category 3 or 4 hurricane, made little difference to us, we knew that it would be bad. Doris bought some jugs of water, filled the car up with gas, took out the candles, Etc. I in turn, cleared the deck of pots, chairs, flipped the tables, retracted the bar, took down anything hanging, secured the outside T.V. with an extra safety line, piled up the couches against the windows and was satisfied with all I had done, certain it would pass inspection. Doris later came and changed a few things and arranged them differently. She further insisted we take down the shade from the garage and asked me how we could board up the windows. It was too late. Plywood was at the shop under lock and key and Don Juan- the gardener who could help me install them, was gone. We were now as ready as we were going to be. We made a last, nervous dash to the newly rebuilt Sand Bar. All furniture there had been taken away and both decks where the patrons sit off the sand, were clear. The doors and windows for the kitchen on the lower deck and the storage area on the upper deck were latched up. Valuable restaurant stuff and produce was inside. I lowered the master breaker myself and asked one of the more limber kids to climb up on a ladder and close the main gas valve on the stationary propane tank. Just a week ago, I had jotted down on my to do list- bolt down gas tank properly. Needless to say, I wrote it on the mañana pad. That had me a bit worried but I knew it was full, heavy and sheltered on the back side of the building. It would take a lot of wind to get it airborne. More exposed were the four 1,200 liter water tanks on the roof. I was sure they were doomed. The Sand Bar would inevitably have a rough night- regardless of the specifics of direction or force. With still 6 or 8 hours away from the fringes of Odile, the sea was kicking up menacing 4 or 5 meter waves that were smashing the sand a few feet away from the front screw piles under the massage deck, sending water rushing under The Sand Bar and crashing the sea wall, five meters behind the rear screw piles that held it all up. At this time, the lower deck was four feet up off the sand in the front and about two off the sand at the back. On our last moments there, we saw a couple of waves over the course of five minutes, hit the undercarriage of the deck, toward the back, shaking the entire structure and stressing the 2 X 6s held down by 2 1/2 inch dry wall screws. My heart was sinking as we left and I realized we still had two more hours of low tide. In 8 hours, Médano Beach would be in high tide and an unusually low barometric reading, would cause the ocean to rise even more. The future looked bleak and I couldnt help myself from cringing as we turned away and headed for the car. The sky behind lands end was bruised with a huge gray cloud that was more like a vast dark wall, approaching at a steady pace. Back at the house we turned on the Monday night American Football. Doris immersed herself in Facebook and told me that Cabos power would be shut down by 18:00 Hrs. From our bed we could see the wind slowly start to pick up from the East, and within an hour it was as strong as we have ever seen it and sure enough, someone pulled the breaker on all of Cabo. Doris phone yielded a glow that lit the bedroom and outside, there was nothing but a loud, howling blackness. The fear the windows would blow out made us nervous and we soon decided Luisas room or the wine cellar would be the safest place to be, so the five of us (the two of us and our three puppies) bunkered down there, with only a candle, a flashlight and our phones. Early on I knew the potential for having the windows blown out and had the foresight to insure both of us took down shoes as they might be indispensable when we surfaced from the safety of our shelter in the morning. The high pitch howling outside was unbearable. Doris was hurting from the pressure in her ears. I tried to mask it by covering my ears and humming out loud. It was just a matter of time before a random projectile would find its way through our windows facing the bay. Havoc would inevitably follow. 3G on our phones was on and off intermittently. We hoped that whatever message we were able to fire off would be forwarded to those away from Cabo and whos hearts were here with us. They were short messages- we are bunkered down in Luisas room with the three dogs. We are safe- not sure what we will find above us when we emerge from this shelter. We heard windows crashing at about 22:00 local and a lot of noise for the next 15 minutes- the first telltale for us down bellow that the roof had been ripped off the house, was the fact that the chimes in our living room were not making any noise, despite the 200 KPH plus winds rushing throughout the house.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:29:47 +0000
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