Column: The day I met my neighbors

(Disclaimer: Columns often contain opinion)

I met my neighbors Friday.

Thanks to Helene.

I was up bright and early Friday. All right, so, maybe it wasn’t really bright, but it definitely was early. Admit it, you were up then too.

 The ceiling fan slowed around 4:15ish and then came back on briefly. But by 4:45ish, the power was gone, and without the soothing sounds of the fans, the crashes, crunches and howls of the angry storm snapping trees like toothpicks and shredding homes was accentuated.

The storm reminded me of another sleepless night a decade ago when the wintry Pax played a similar tune. Little did I know that Pax’s punch was much weaker than Helene’s. I couldn’t imagine the destruction of Helene though, lying awake praying feverishly that no one be hurt. Before I’d gone to bed, I was concerned mainly for a few friends I have in Florida. I didn’t know that it was my Augusta friends who’d need that concern.

That leads me to meeting my neighbors.

Our damage was light.

We don’t have any pine trees in our yard. Our stately oak, which weathered the evil Pax in February 2014, made it through Helene with her branches battered, but she was still standing. A tree snapped in our backyard, but it wasn’t close to the house. We were o.k.

As I surveyed my yard and my beloved tree, I noticed a cluster of people standing at the end of the road.

Our quiet neighborhood has one road in and out. I grabbed my umbrella because Helene had not finished. It was still a blustery day as Winnie The Pooh might say.

When I got to the end of the street, I realized why they were chatting. They hadn’t slept either. On either side of the street massive trees lay on their sides, completely blocking the thoroughfare. We weren’t going anywhere for a while.  We were stuck, cut off from the rest of the world.

I recognized Yolanda, who is a photographer.  A tree limb went through her home and other trees were toppled in her yard. Another neighbor who lived on the corner had a massive tree tipped over exposing its massive roots. We joked about having a giant bonfire/cookout as we pondered what we were going to do.

With no power and no internet and no way to drive anywhere — but where were we going to go? It’s not like anyone else had power — I decided to go home, put on my walking shoes and see what else Helene had done.

I made it out of the neighborhood and maneuvered past not one, not two, but three massive trees completely covering the thoroughfare, their trunks intermingled with power lines forcing them to the pavement. Other power poles were snapped like twigs.

I headed down my usual walk route. As I coursed down the sidewalk, my heart felt heavy as I passed yard after yard strewn with broken tree branches or massive pines that had fallen over without any mercy from Helene. Others looked like sharpened pencils with their chiseled edges pointing toward the sky.

As I reached another spot on my daily walk, I noticed the traffic signal was missing. It lay shattered in the middle of the road. There I met another neighbor, wearing a reflective vest. He didn’t work for a utility company or the city of Augusta, he just wanted to get the dangerous debris out of the way.

He told me that a tornado or microburst had gone through the area around 4:40ish – the same time we all lost power as Helene grabbed our power lines in her watery fingers.

“I wondered why there was a freight train going through at that time of night,” he said.

“Freight train?” I thought.

Amid all the other scary noises of Helene, I did hear something like that. And judging from the number of trees with their tops sheared off, that made sense. But I couldn’t confirm it. My cell phone service was sketchy at best. And none of my feeds were updating.

 I tried to turn onto the street, but there were even more downed lines and more trees.

 “Be careful,” another neighbor said, pointing to the dangling power lines.

 I turned and decided to head back to my street, checking on my neighbors as I passed by. I saw another couple who I typically talk to on my daily walks.  I carry my daughter’s dog with me most of the time. He reminds my neighbor of a dog she once had. She and her husband awoke to the sound of a limb piercing their roof and going into their home office. But they were o.k.

Once I made it through the maze of downed trees, I got back onto my street and went to check on Steve and Joy. My daughter had sent me a photo of the damage to the inside of their house.

They’d had some damage recently repaired on their home, and they’d only been back in it for two weeks. When I arrived, they were sitting on their porch, obviously shaken. Joy took me inside.

Steve had woken when the power went out, and the two headed to an interior closet. Thirty minutes later, a tree crashed through their ceiling, ripping a portion of their outer wall and landing in the bed. He’s thankful there was no “what if.”

Another neighbor who stopped by imagined she’d need to cook up everything in her freezer soon. She offered us food.

I heard “if there’s anything I can do” multiple times over the next several hours.

Then, there was Rebecca, another person who looked shaken. She lives a few streets over and came toward my street after being forced out because of a reported gas leak.

“It’s like the apocalypse,” she said.

One of her neighbors was missing half of their home, ripped away by Helene’s fierce grip. But no one was hurt.

As the morning progressed, I met other neighbors as they walked around the subdivision. There were clusters of people with chainsaws, cutting their way out of each other driveways and trying to clear the road of debris.

We didn’t have the distractions of Internet, TV and the everyday busy-ness that consumes us.

For one day, we all walked the neighborhood, checking to make sure everyone was o.k.   Most of the “how are you doings?” that were traded with one another were met with a sigh of relief. We were all o.k., shaken but o.k.

 Before day’s end, the trees blocking the road had been carved away somewhat to allow at least for one open lane. By Friday night, we still didn’t have power, but everyone is o.k.

And that is something to be grateful for.

I met other neighbors Friday, and I’m glad I met my neighbors, even if it wasn’t under the best of circumstances.

Stay safe, Augusta. I’ll see you soon.

Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.