Hurricane Betsy

September 9, 1965, was my twelfth birthday.  My parents bought my favorite coconut cream cake from McKenzie's Bakery a few days before.   All of the gifts had been wrapped in anticipation of my upcoming party.  Nervous and cautious excitement rose as the big day approached, not just because of the upcoming anniversary of my birth, but because Hurricane Betsy was churning in the Gulf of Mexico.  The weather reports grew gloomier as Betsy took direct aim at New Orleans.   All of the neighbors around Napoleon and St. Charles Avenues boarded up windows and searched for safe places to park their cars.  My dad furiously tied ropes around our iron gates and tightly wound our garage doors in an effort to stop them banging at best and from becoming projectiles at worst.  My brother and I helped our mom move mattresses along the walls of our long interior hallway between frequent trips to the windows for the purpose of gazing skyward at clouds unlike anything I had ever seen before:  intense muted colors, jigsaw overlapping formations, and swift flowing currents interspersed between eerie silent motion.   I was anxious about experiencing a hurricane on my birthday.  Betsy finally arrived, bearing down with a nightfall direct hit on our home in New Orleans.  We hunkered down in the padded hallway with a few games, snacks, and our adopted grey cat named CC, a shortened version of her full name of Crazy Cat.  As the night wore on, CC had never more deserved her name.  Soon the electricity flickered and died.  My mother carefully lit a single birthday candle on top of my cake and the family did their best to put the happy into the Happy Birthday song.  I blew out the candle and the family was enveloped in darkness.   Mom switched on a flashlight which seemed to anger the winds already banging against the ten-foot-tall glass doors standing sentry on our front porch.   Our huge stately home began to sway and shake.  Weaker windows' panes in adjacent rooms began to shatter and crash onto the ancient floorboards.  Our parents hugged us tighter in our makeshift storm cellar and feigned calm and assurance.  Suddenly, a loud bang pierced our ears as a neighbor's roof impaled our home.   Putrid rust colored water seeped down the walls into our cell, and the once solid ceiling began weeping above our heads.  Furious rain pelted throughout the house.  Trees smashed porches and brick chimneys crashed to the ground.  Our basketball goal flew down the driveway and lodged into a neighbor's car.  Our small transistor radio reported wind speeds, tornadoes, and rising water until the signal died.  With now only the crackling of the radio and the sound of Betsy raging against our home in our ears we found ourselves totally alone and shaking in fear.  As midnight approached there was a sudden calm and stillness.  Dad explained that we were now in the eye of the hurricane.  He bolted from our shelter to check the rope on the garage doors.  The doors were intact and right where he left them.  Unfortunately, the garage was gone, and his new Chevy Impala was smashed.  For a brief moment I peeked out of a broken window onto the war zone that once was our neighborhood.   Debris and destruction flashed before my young eyes as far as they could see with the backdrop of a clear sky and glimmering moonlight looking down in amazement on Betsy's handiwork.  Mom screamed at my dad to come back inside as Betsy's winds swung back around for round two.  Once again, we huddled together between mattresses now dank and disheveled hoping they would survive another series of blows.  After an eternity enveloped in a hot, damp purgatory we saw glimmers of sunlight which seemed to almost immediately drive away the remaining winds and rain.  My dad took my brother and me by the hands and cautiously led us out toward St. Charles Avenue.  However, downed power lines, murky and multi-colored water, mounds of broken wood and glass, and splintered trees blocked our way.  Nervous neighbors crawled out of their halls and closets to survey the damage.  We were all grateful to be alive, but in shock.  We weathered the storm named Betsy on September 9, 1965, and from that day forward my birthday would never again arrive without the memory of her attempt to make the date of my birth also the date of my death.