Storm Story

I've not posted a story in a while, and I don't think I've posted this one. Here is my account of the storm of the decade (we only get big snow storms, rarely big wind storms in Muskegon) here back in June.

The night sky was black, just the barest hint of the recently raging clouds still sailing quietly overhead-- still threatening to attack the darkened city. The wind, which had groaned and moaned through the trees and caused our walls to vibrate and the house to shudder in resistance, had quieted too, leaving our street in fear of its return as the first of the inhabitants opened their doors to see the wreckage.
With the storm seemingly gone, I again glanced out the door at the tree that had come down next to the neighbour's truck-- he never has luck with trees; the last one hit his house. In the red glow of a car's tail-lights I noticed what looked like smoke gently rolling along the road and upon the currents of air as it mingled with the hint of fog. Not much else could be seen as the storm that had just ripped through had taken out all power. Our street-lamp lay snapped and shattered in the road.
I left the house with one of the two sources of light we had at the moment, beyond the lightning that still flashed viciously in the far distance-- I couldn't find a flashlight, so I lit a couple kerosene lamps. Worse for me, I had neglected to fill up two more that had run dry a while before the storm ended.
With a blue lantern in hand, I slipped into some shoes but didn't fully put them on, and I jogged out into the light fog and bit of misty rain.
No longer seeing the smoke, I discovered three wires hanging down from a pole that were greeting the ground next to where a light pole had snapped in three places, which was now laying in the street. I turned, jogged to the car sitting in a driveway and waited. Its occupant didn't see me, so I knocked on the window, which startled her, and I asked if she had an extra flashlight that I could put out to warn cars.
She didn't, of course, so I set my lantern in the middle of the road and jogged back home to find something bright/reflective to put out. I ended up using yellow cat litter buckets and white boxes to block off the road. She didn't like that I blocked off the full road, which had a slight opening on the far left. I told her a vehicle could hook itself on a wire, and that could result in the death of an occupant (I played it up to make her get my point), which still didn't satisfy her. So I abandoned her as she was fine and there were more important things to do.
Running back and forth, I was bringing yellow buckets and white boxes and the only other illumination I could find: Fake flickering candles. I stayed for a while, trying to figure out what else to do. After all, I was climbing around downed wires in the dark with just a small oil lamp and a car's tail-lights, with all emergency crews working on major roads/danger-areas.
The time was about midnight and I couldn't type all of this up for a few days (no power), so I don't recall all exact details. But it was likely after the second car I flagged down and turned around (I wasn't letting them through the wires that were on/barely above the road) that I decided to do "damage control"-- that is, to help those who need it and clear roads of branches/block off roads that were dangerous.
As I went along in the dark, with the moon finally beginning to show, a couple dogs blew up at me from inside a house. The elderly couple I vaguely knew, and I asked if they needed any assistance. The woman said a tree had fallen on their house and blocked them in. I went to open the chain-link fence's gate when she shrieked, "Don't touch it! There could be a wire on it!".
Telling her I'd go investigate, I cautiously walked around their house on the corner and held my lantern close to the ground. Sure enough, I found a cable draped across the metal fence and was glad of her thinking ahead. For a few days the electric company was focused on that particular house.
I moved along that short road and found another set of downed lines that would catch on vehicles. I went to go back to my house to try, in the pitch-black garage, to find more white boxes/yellow buckets and perhaps tell my mom that I'd be a while. Suddenly I saw another person in the road, so I went up to her to see if she needed help. As it turns out, she had just gotten home-- she had tried to drive through the storm. I told her what I was doing, and she told me she could get me some more boxes. As we went to her house, I re-directed another vehicle and got the latest news on the next road over, which the street I had just come off of attached to.
I lost the lady but knew she had come from the house with its lamp-post still glaring. I knocked, was told to come in, and was given several boxes. Somehow she still had electricity. We both went out into the night, and I directed her on what to do. We crept cautiously along as we went out to spot for more wires. Ducking under some, I set the boxes on both sides of where they hung and in a pattern where each could be seen by a vehicle coming head on.
We then progressed further down the road and found a tree had cut it off. I had her clear some branches, but she was immediately terrified by what turned out to be a water-logged robin that likely lost her nest, which would also explain her aggressive and loud nature. I cleared those tree-limbs and went to work on clearing half that road for emergency vehicles/people's families.
As we went back toward our road, I asked if she'd like to go home. She did, as she needed to shower and called it creepy outside, and I went down the road to clear more branches and search for lines. By this time, my feet, with my heels still out of my shoes and crushing the backs of them, were soaked and felt weird from walking like that. All the while, I debated going home-- that my job was done, as my road I had mostly walked, and a headache was starting.
In the end, though, I hit up the next road over (after using one box and an arrow of sticks to point out where there was sparking of wires going on in a tree) and walked toward a confusing mix of red and white lights. It turned out that a house had set on fire, with the majority of the damage thankfully being in the garage. A few months later the house was demolished and is now a smoothed-out lot.
After figuring out that there was nothing to be done there, I talked to a lady who had walked up from the Church to see the family. With that done, I walked around on the main road where people were either treating the stop light as Free To Speed or a Stop Sign as it was totally out. One person slowed down for me for I likely seemed dazed as I kept turning around on the road, trying to figure out which way I should go. But I walked up toward a house where I heard a very strange sound, figured it was due to damaged electrical wires, and decided to leave it as I had seen plenty downed lines in people's yards but had not put up boxes or anything.
Walking back toward the road over from mine, I saw a car's flashers on down at the very end. I ran to see if everything was okay but later saw a First Responder vehicle get to them first. After I slowed to a walk and my lantern (which was running low on oil) stopped swinging, I came across a tree partially in the road and a wire draping down across the road but still several feet up (at one end) in the air. I wasn't sure what to do as I had no boxes, didn't know who was awake and who was asleep at 1 AM on the blacked-out road (I wanted to ask for more boxes or lights).... so I actually began to drag tree limbs into the road so people would not hit the wires. One could get through on the right side, but I was about to close off the left.
Suddenly head-lights blinded me, as they had done several times in my journey to mark the wires. I held up my lantern and stood in the middle of the road as I had been doing with the others, and I put up my hand to tell him to stop. Red lights began flashing on the mirrors, then overhead lights. It turned out he was an officer.
I told him the issue up ahead, and he got out. He, under his head-lights and a flash-light, studied the cable and where it attached to on the pole buried under a tree. A few attempts later, he cut through (with a knife!) what was a phone line. LOL.
He ended up following me around, as I told him what was up ahead (clear) and what needed attention in my area. I cleared a path and he went to pass, it seemed, then stopped. He asked about the road ahead, which I had not looked at yet, and he went to clear it (it was a dead-end road, so it was of less concern to me than more used roads). He then followed me again, in which I directed him on what houses needed attention and which trees had sparking of wires going on, as well as what the road-blocks meant.
I found him to be not that friendly or sociable, but I understood that the storm that had just occurred was a serious matter, and that he was being serious in the situation. He radioed in more reports and I walked along another road, cleared half the road where a large branch had shattered into splinters on it, and moved out the smaller debris scattered along it.
I came back, stopped to talk to two people (one described the lightning as strobe lights, and the other had driven through it from another town) and found the officer marking the wires either in yellow or red Caution and Danger tapes. I went to go beyond the wires I had first blocked off (where he must have figured I would then not be seen again), and he thanked me. We parted, my lamp having been turned down or up several times in that last half hour as my fuel (which I hadn't filled up in months) was about gone.
I walked to the end of my road and the final road that cut to the one next to ours, cleared more debris, spotted another tree with sparking wires in it (right by my house, too), and investigated my neighbour's truck to see if the tree had damaged it. The tree barely touched it, so it was fine.
I entered the house, myself wet and tired, and went to bed. The next morning I woke up by myself and went to work, then I returned home and grabbed my yellow buckets and took photographs. I also returned the lady's boxes, which were a bit soggy.
I didn't sleep well that second evening, either. The first was incredibly hot and humid in my room-- I was dying. The second, my neighbours had a very loud generator roaring in their driveway, which is right next to my bedroom.
We didn't get power till 2 AM a few days later. As such, we used my collection of kerosene lamps.
I also found out that my car needed a new radiator. Perhaps all that wind did some damage under the hood? I don't know, but it got replaced after steam began coming out of it after I exited the highway (it's always the highway and a particular road off it that my car, which is now dead, would have issues on).
The storm was great. Everything after that, though.... LOL.
The day after the storm we went to the park, where a tree had collapsed on the playground equipment and snapped the steel bars. I took a piece home, which said Miracle. As far as I know, the storm didn't kill anyone, which was a miracle.

Photo 1 is the light pole snapped. No tree hit it, just the wires. Stump still in ground.
Photo 2: House with wire on fence where occupant shrieked.
Photo 3: View of road.
Photo 4: What we cleared out in one section.

There should be a section for CW members to post their own stories in.