The rain came in a sideways deluge with no letup, and the wind drove drops to a flesh-stinging velocity. The tide and building storm surge pushed higher on the beaches, and in the lower spots the waves passed across the sand to begin the systematic destructive battering of structures. In areas close to the beach, sea foam blew everywhere, sometimes in clumps and other times disintegrating into snowflake-sized pieces.
Sand became pinhead-sized shrapnel, and debris of every kind slid and skidded and rolled down streets. When it was caught by gusts, even large things sailed into the air like oversized kites. There were many aluminum sheets loose in the wind that hit with the force of a six-foot knife, wreaking bloody havoc on any person reckless enough to be out in the storm.
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The sound was relentless, a rising and lowering moan that never ceased, as if the storm was alive.
Randall picked up Hunter at her Fort Lauderdale hotel. The wind gusted while she hurried across the grass, so hard that it blew her off her feet.
“You okay?” Randall asked. The wind was so strong he almost had to yell.
“Yeah, just a little grass stain on my jeans. How many are responding?”
“I’ve got no idea. Phone service is out. There may be some landlines still working, but I don’t know which ones.” Randall’s pickup rocked sideways as another hard gust hit them.
“This thing’s getting stronger.”
“We’re going into the worst of it now, and we’ll be there for a good while.”
Hunter said, “I tried to contact Andre, but my phone was in and out, so I’m not sure he heard where to meet.”
“I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
Hunter asked, “What about John?”
Randall said, “One part I caught when we were talking, before I lost it, was that he’s heading for Dania, which is smart. There’s no way on earth any of us this far north can make it down to Homestead in time to help.”
“Who do you think will?”
“The Coast Guard, for one. They’re the best in these situations. There’s a guy I know, Joe Mackey, he’ll be in the middle of the action. Maybe I can reach him when phone service comes back, and get us an update.”
“We can only do what we can do.”
“You got it, hot stuff.” Randall drove away from the beach and the storm to US 1, and turned south toward Dania.
The rain was so heavy that Randall couldn’t see the road in places, and any low spots were like shallow ponds.
Hunter said, “You’ve got this in four-wheel, right?”
“Wouldn’t try it any other way.” A long piece of corrugated tin sailed through the air and the front edge sailed down like a kamikaze plane, slamming into the pickup’s windshield, where it crumpled on impact and slid off the windshield with shrieking sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.
A fresh crack ran across the windshield from side to side. Hunter said, “That made me suck in my breath. Being in this, my stomach feels the same as it does when I go off the top of a roller coaster and I’m in the front seat.”
Randall said, “You can pull your fingers out of the dash now.”
“Har har.”
He made a left onto A1A and felt the wind’s impact as soon as he turned. It came right at them. The truck fought to go forward, but struggled, shuddering and slipping on the rain covered pavement. Randall gave it more gas, then even more.
Wind-whipped water was everywhere, over the road, in the mangroves, in the canals, and the rain came down at a wind-canted angle like the clouds had burst.
Everything was joined in the wind: the clouds and land and water, all a gray, swirling, blowing, howling monster throwing palm fronds, small bushes, metal, plastic, trash cans, paper, and anything else not anchored to the ground. Trees were down, others canted at impossible angles. Only the Queen palms seemed able to remain upright in the onslaught.
When Randall followed the A1A circle around and turned to go to the Dania Pier, they got their first good look at the ocean. Hunter felt her heart speed up, and imagined it was what a mouse felt when it saw a cat coming at it. The water was a mass of blowing foam, frothy whitecaps, choppy gray waves interspersed by larger breaking waves and all of it coming high up on the sand.
She saw a half-submerged sailboat several hundred yards offshore, bobbing in the gray water like an odd-shaped cork. Farther out she saw a long, dark shape barely visible in the rain and clouds. It was a large freighter in distress, with its port side facing the storm. It seemed to wallow with every large wave.
Randall said, “We need to get on the pier.”