On the weekend Aug. 27 and 28, Harding students were enjoying their first weekend of the fall 2011 semester, catching up with friends and cracking open textbooks. Meanwhile, Hurricane Irene was ravaging the East Coast, claiming about 45 lives and leaving 6.4 million people without power.
Irene, which began as Category 1 hurricane at the time of landfall that was shortly thereafter downgraded to a tropical storm, hit North Carolina first and then tore north along the coast, reaching as far as Maine. All told, Irene affected 13 states and Washington, D.C.
In addition to knocking out power to numerous homes, the storm caused widespread flooding. The flooding and lack of electricity disrupted communication, transportation and commerce, but repairs were under way almost immediately. By Sept. 1, 5.6 million people had their power back.
Among those at Harding with family affected by the storm was Jessica Heitmann Warmath, who graduated from Harding this past spring and now lives in Searcy. Her family members, the Heitmanns, were at their home in East Stroudsburg, N.Y., when Irene hit at 1 a.m. EST on Aug. 28. Her family huddled together in the living room to wait out the storm, unable to sleep because of the noise.
“It was really scary for them,” Warmath said. “My mom said that it was the loudest noise she’d ever heard, that it felt like thunder was going right through the house. And the wind had blown down the basketball hoop, and it was held down by big boulders.”
The Heitmanns live in a mountainous, forested part of New York. The wind toppled trees and the flooding forced many roads to be blocked off, Warmath said. The bridge to a nearby elementary school was washed away; it takes about an hour to get there by the alternate route.
Like many families who braved the storm, the Heitmanns lost their power. They ran their back-up generator for three to four hours each day so that they could bathe and use their fridge, and they cooked their food on a gas stove.
Others in the area found creative ways to live without electricity by doing things like picnicking in their cars in supermarket parking lots, Warmath said.
“[It is] exhausting because they are always worrying about simple things like having food or being able to take a shower,” Warmath said.
Unlike most Harding students, who heard about Irene from the news or relatives, senior Tripp Radcliffe experienced the tropical storm for himself when it hit his home at 5 p.m. EST on Aug. 27 in Richmond, Va. He was waiting to go on his study abroad program with Harding University in Florence in mid-September.
Radcliffe and his family “roughed it” on their bottom floor when Irene swept through.
No one was injured, but two trees hit his house, one of which left the attic exposed, and another tree hit his dad’s car. There was a lot of debris everywhere and their power went out, he said.
