You can’t plan and predict for a hurricane. Oh, people try. Those folks in suits on the television screen tell you what will happen. But what they’re really saying is what they think will happen. Because, like the rest of us, they don’t really know what’s going on.
One Texas couple assumed they knew what to expect when Hurricane Harvey made landfall this past weekend. Bill and Paulette Rogers live in Port Aransas and had lived through worse storms. Harvey was only supposed to be a Category 2 Hurricane when they decided to stay. By the time the storm upgraded to a Category 4, it was too late to leave.
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” Bill later told a Dallas News reporter.
As Harvey raged, trees fell through their two-story beach home, forcing them to evacuate to their Ford Focus parked in the garage. When the water rushed in, they retreated to Bill’s white Ford F-250 Super Duty. Trying to maneuver the vehicle to a higher patch of land, debris got lodged in the truck’s axel. So Bill opened the door to see if he could dislodge it.
He stepped onto the running board, and his feet instantly slipped under him, his body claimed by the surge rushing back to the harbor 200 yards in the distance. With all he could muster, he held on to the door and his life. Paulette reached out and grabbed him.
“If you’re dying today,” she remembers saying, “I’m going with you.”
Bill eventually made it back into the truck’s cab and the couple, along with their four dogs, waited out the storm in the truck as water rushed to the couple’s shoulders. They couldn’t move and had nothing to do but wait.
“If you had to pee,” Paulette said, “you just peed.”
Thankfully the Rogers made it out alive. Their house experienced significant damage due to the storm, but what’s important is they made it out alive. What’s worth noting is they never doubted they would.
“Death?” Bill told the Dallas News. “I ain’t afraid of death. What I’m afraid of is the IRS.”
Hopefully Hurricane IRS doesn’t come anytime soon then.
