Beryl and Black Cat

Greetings from the fabulous metropolis of Sulphur, Louisiana*, where Corinne and I are spending a rather impromptu "vacation" on account of the fact that we don't have any power at our home in Houston. After some unbearably sweaty and sleepless nights at home, and with the understanding that Centerpoint would not be restoring our electricity anytime soon, we realized that we needed to decamp to someplace that had internet access and air conditioning. This was the closest place available.

Hurricane Beryl - which was originally expected to make landfall well south of here but continued to track northward in spite of the projections of pretty much every meteorologist - made landfall early Monday morning. The east side of the eyewall roared over us between 8 and 11 am that day, causing our townhome to literally shake in the wind and driving rain.

It was a stressful and exhausting experience, to say the least; I last hunkered down through a hurricane during Ike in 2008 and this was just as agonizing as I remembered, if not more so. I continually worried that a massive wind gust would blow out a window or rip off our roof, in spite of the fact that Beryl was "only" a Category 1. I was very relieved when the worst passed through and the winds began to calm down around noon. We lost power at about 8:30 am Monday morning, but the house itself thankfully does not appear to have sustained any major damage.

As Beryl approached on Sunday, we noticed that Black Cat (his real name is "Orion" but we've always called him "Black Cat" because that's what Kirby called him when he was a toddler) was failing. He was 16 1/2 years old, which is pretty aged for a cat, and I noticed earlier in the week that he was eating less and the limp in his back leg was getting worse. But as of Saturday evening, he seemed to be doing fine, and even contentedly hung out with me in my office as I web-surfed and doom-scrolled on my computer. But by Sunday evening he was clearly not well. He was lying on the floor, weak and barely able to move. 

I could tell he was suffering and wanted to put him out of his misery. Unfortunately, no vets were available on account of the fact that it was Sunday night and the hurricane was approaching; even the 24-hour emergency vet on the Southwest Freeway told me (after being put on hold for fifteen minutes) that they were hopelessly backed-up, with only one vet on staff. So we tried to make him as comfortable as possible as he lay on the floor, his breathing increasingly labored, his body all but immobile. I wrapped him in a towel. He still purred when I pet him and croaked a few weak meows to us; but he refused any food or water I tried to give him. Black Cat hung to life even as the hurricane roared over us, but he finally expired at about 8 pm Monday evening. 

He was annoying and obnoxious, and he loved me unconditionally. I'll miss him. Orion "Black Cat" Gray 2007-2024

Monday night we tried to sleep, in spite of the lack of electricity and the dead cat in the living room. The still, humid air made everything uncomfortable as we lay in our beds in pools of sweat. The sirens, loud trucks and droning generators (from neighbors prescient enough to have bought them) rang in our ears. Maybe we dozed off a bit here and there, but we didn't get anything approaching quality sleep.

On Tuesday we wearily went over to my parents' house to check on them, as they had also lost power. While we were there we buried Black Cat in their front yard. We had always planned to bury Black Cat when he died and plant a tree atop him, as we did with Elektra. However, given the circumstances, the only sapling available for us to plant was a neglected mulberry sitting in a pot in the corner of my parents' yard. It would have to do.

I hope Black Cat's decomposing body causes the sapling to grow into the most beautiful mulberry tree ever. As annoying as he could be, with his incessant meowing and his biting and his constant demanding of food, he deserves to live on in another organism. I'm going to miss his ridiculously loud purr most of all.

Black Cat's final resting place, amidst debris left from the previous day's hurricane.

Tuesday evening Corinne and I were able to seek air-conditioned refuge and recharge our phones at my neighborhood bar, which had regained power, while my parents relocated to our friends' house in Pearland who also had electricity. That night Centerpoint released the first version of their useless power outage tracker: it showed our neighborhood as "partially energized," which is true in that some people around us on different circuits did have electricity. But we still don't, and as of the time of this writing Centerpoint's map still can't tell us when our power will be restored. Tuesday night was, once again, stifling, sweaty and sleepless. Our townhome simply wasn't built to catch a breeze or otherwise provide natural ventilation in case of power failure.

Until a crew comes to replace and reconnect the fuse armatures that are currently hanging down, we won't have power. 

Wednesday morning, as Corinne and I began to pick through our refrigerator and toss yogurt, cheese, mayonnaise and other spoiled perishables into the trash, we exhaustedly began musing about finding a hotel. That afternoon, while again seeking refuge at the neighborhood bar (and watching England punch their ticket to the Euro 2024 final), we got serious about it and began looking for available lodging. But with every Houston-area hotel either booked or unpowered, the only options available were out of town. So we found this place and made our way here - the two-hour trip along I-10 felt like an eternity - last night.

It was the right decision. We got a good, air-conditioned night's sleep last night, I was finally able to get some work done today (my employer gave us emergency leave for the past three days but as of this afternoon the office and its systems were back up and running), we were able to do some laundry, eat our first proper meal in three days, and both of us feel so much better than we did just a day ago. We will return to Houston tomorrow; as of late this afternoon we learned that electricity had been restored to my parents' house so we will have a place to stay tomorrow night regardless of whether our house has power.

I may have a lot more to say about this experience - why the forecasters struggled with Beryl's track, would it have made a difference had I taken Black Cat (whose demise I had been sadly expecting for months) to the vet earlier, why Centerpoint's infrastructure could not withstand a Category 1 hurricane and why their post-hurricane restoration effort has been a complete clusterfuck, whether it even makes sense to continue living in a city as dependent on air conditioning and as prone to climate-related catastrophe as Houston - in a future post. As for now, I'm just happy the unexpectedly brutal week of Beryl and Black Cat is coming to an end.

*I really shouldn't make fun of this place. Every person we've encountered here in Sulphur - from the staff at our hotel to the clerk at the convenience store to the attendant at the laundromat to the waiter at the Waffle House at the intersection of I-10 and LA-27 - has been nothing short of wonderful and empathetic to us.