Chapter 14 - The Hurricane on the Maine Shore, the Crushed Timber, and the Shield of a Father’s Body
In late September, the most ferocious hurricane to hit the New England coast in three decades made landfall over Penobscot Bay.
The town of Havenport was ordered to evacuate inland, but Old Lighthouse Road was cut off early when an eighty-foot coastal pine collapsed across the access bridge, severing power lines and blocking emergency vehicles.
Grace and fourteen-month-old Noah were trapped in the bluffs cottage as seventy-mile-per-hour gales hammered the cliffs, driving seawater over the rocks and threatening to tear the roof from its rafters.
I didn't wait for emergency services.
I took a chainsaw, a tow winch, and heavy-duty tow cables from my workshop, loaded them into my battered pickup truck, and drove directly into the storm.
When I reached the downed pine at the bridge, the wind was howling with deafening fury, the rain stinging like needles. I waded through waist-deep freezing water, hooked the winch cables around the massive trunk, cut through the branches with the chainsaw until my arms burned with exhaustion, and dragged the tree clear using the truck’s low-gear torque.
I breached the washed-out road and roared up the bluffs to Grace’s cottage just as a massive gust of wind tore a section of the porch roof away with a screech of shearing nails.
I kicked the front door open.
“Grace!”
The living room was in chaos. Rain was pouring through the damaged ceiling. Grace was huddled in the corner beneath the heavy stone chimney, shielding Noah with her own body as plaster and wooden shingles rained down around them.
“Caleb!” she screamed, her voice filled with sheer, unadulterated relief.
I sprinted across the room, grabbed a heavy wool blanket, wrapped it around both of them, and pulled Grace to her feet. “We have to get to the truck! The roof on the west wing is failing!”
As we reached the front hallway, a horrifying sound of cracking timber echoed above us. A massive two-hundred-year-old oak branch crashed through the center ceiling beam directly over our heads.
Without thinking, without hesitation, I spun around, threw myself over Grace and Noah, and took the full impact of the falling beam across my back and shoulders.
The heavy timber struck me with crushing force, knocking the breath from my lungs, driving me to my knees on the hardwood floor.
Pain exploded across my spine and ribs.
I clamped my jaw shut, blood filling my mouth, and refused to collapse. I held my arms locked like steel pillars over my wife and son, taking the weight of the splintered roof on my flesh while Grace screamed beneath me.
“Caleb! Oh God, Caleb!”
“Go!” I roared through the blood in my teeth, pushing upward with the last ounce of strength in my legs, lifting the beam two inches off the floor. “Grace, crawl out! Take Noah and get to the truck! Go now!”
Grace slid out from beneath the timber, clutching Noah to her chest.
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She turned back, grabbed my jacket with desperate strength, and pulled with everything she had as I shoved the beam sideways and rolled clear of the collapsing hallway into the howling rain outside.
I carried them both to the truck, threw them into the passenger cabin, slammed the door, and drove through the raging storm to the shelter at the Havenport High School gymnasium before my vision finally went black from fractured ribs and internal shock.
