I never met Alix Bonhomme Jr., but I think I know a little bit about what he was thinking in the minutes before he died Tuesday morning in Butts County, Ga. The paragraph I’ve read several times now says it all:
Paramedics found the 4-year-old boy, Alix Bonhomme III, wrapped in the arms of his father, Alix Bonhomme Jr., in a sight so wrenching that even grizzled rescuers wept. Miraculously, a younger son in the bedroom wasn’t hurt, nor was Bonhomme’s fiancee, Marcie Moorer, who was sleeping in another room.
All Mr. Bonhomme wanted was to protect his little boy. And I’m sure little Alix felt safe and protected in his dad’s arms. He might have been scared — but he probably thought everything would be OK because Dad had him.
I bet Mr. Bonhomme said all the right things. The things we’re programmed to say whether we believe them or not.
“Don’t worry.”
“Daddy has you.”
“Everything’s gonna be all right.”
No one thinks about a moment like that before they have kids. At least I didn’t. You think about all the good times to come. Zoos and birthday parties and teaching them how to ride a bike.
You don’t think about hunkering down.
We joke about that term in Florida because it’s so cliche here. We hear it over and over during the hurricane season. Meteorologists, anchors and reporters sound like a parody of themselves when they say things like, “While you hunker down and ride out this powerful storm, our team will hold your hand as we report from throughout Central Florida.”
A view of the back yard from the roof.
It’s funny to us because despite all the watches, warnings and evacuations, nothing ever really happens. Hurricanes are wobbly beasts that are easily nudged one way or another. We know we’re safe if the seven-day model shows a storm passing over the western edge of Cuba, into the Gulf and then turning back toward the Sunshine State. Because the seven-day model almost always turns out to be a bust.
But it ceases to be a joke when the hurricane is 100 or so miles away and still coming your way. When you realize Your Actual House is in the path and the sonofabitch doesn’t seem to be turning, then you get concerned. That’s when the boards go up on the windows, the water jugs get filled, and all the flashlights and candles are piled onto the kitchen table.
I gained a little more respect for hurricanes during the summer of 2004. That’s when three of them visited Orlando in six weeks. Charley, Frances and Jeanne left us pretty battered. It took months for all the limbs and uprooted trees to be cut up and hauled away. It was a year or more before all the blue tarps disappeared and the roofs were replaced. A lot of areas looked rough for a long time.
But those memories fade after a while.
The memory that sticks with me is being camped out ["hunkered down" in other words] in the hallway as Charley pushed his way northeast from the Gulf Coast toward Orlando. That hall was the most protected area in our house. Me, my wife, three boys, pillows, blankets, snacks, flashlights, a laptop for DVD viewing and a portable TV tuned to the local Super Doppler 3000 Severe Weather Center StormWatch Non-Stop Coverage.
The kids were 10, 6 and 2 at the time, and they didn’t seem too concerned. It was kind of a game to them. But that’s partly because my wife and I played it so cool. We made it fun. We didn’t act stressed or worried. At least I don’t think we did.
The disc swing was a few feet off the ground before Charley gave the tree a big shove.
One of the strange things about the Charley experience was that despite all the wind, we never lost electricity at our house. We were in this weird little isolated spot that was spared the power outages. That meant I was able to keep watching the TV coverage during the worst part of the storm.
It was pretty obvious that Charley was heading straight for us. And I don’t mean “us” as in “Central Florida,” or “Orlando” or “Winter Springs.” I mean … my house. Seriously, when the guys on TV pointed at the darkest, ugliest, most menacing colors on SuperDoppler StormWatch and showed the projected path, it passed right over my house. And this time it wasn’t the seven-day path. The one you know will change in a few days. No — this was the 15-20 minute path.
WFTV meteorologist Tom Terry (no relation) shared the news that Charley was shredding a bunch of 100-year-old trees in downtown Orlando before setting his sights on Seminole County.
Downtown Orlando … Baldwin Park … Winter Park … Goldenrod … Red Bug Lake Park … Dodd Road …
As the sandhill crane flies, that’s the path to my house.
The next hour or so was stressful to say the least. I had never heard my house, or any house, make sounds like that. Lots of eerie creaking and groaning. We heard trees cracking and huge limbs hitting the ground. Crunching sounds in the back yard as a tree brought down part of my fence. And there were mysterious things that went bump on the roof. When the sun came up, I could tell those sounds were a combination of heavy oak limbs and pieces of my neighbor’s roof. But we were lucky. We escaped with some missing shingles and had a few small leaks.
And we all lived to tell the story, which is what really matters.
It’s too bad Alix Bonhomme Jr. isn’t around to tell his storm story. And I hope that when the tree hit his house, Alix III wasn’t aware of anything other than Daddy being right there with him.
These baby squirrels were on the ground under a tree. Note the quarter to their left.
