The Hurricane

One day Elvira, Miguel, Jorge, and I went to el circo, or the circus.  We got there at 8:30ish p.m.  The sky was dark and there was a little thunder coming from afar.  I was thinking, “Sweet, we are going to have a thunderstorm!”

We finally made it to the front of the line and were permitted to enter the tent.  After taking our seats, we waited for it to begin.  All was normal.  We were talking and watching other people and taking pictures (none with my camera unfortunately), and just having a grand old time.

The tent began to shake.  Elvira said, “Look, the wind.”  I was like, “Yep, it’s pretty windy out there.”  We continued to do our own thing.

The sound of the storm got louder.  Then we could hear the rain hitting the top of the tent.  It was loud.

All of a sudden everyone in the tent stood up, started screaming, and pushed towards the door, trying to get out.

I was so confused.  It was just like a movie.  Or like those T.V. shows of wild things that happen, you know?  The crowd was seriously all screaming and running and pushing to get out.  It was unreal.

Elvira stood up abruptly.  “Vamanos.”

And I found myself joining the mass of screaming people.  But I wasn’t screaming, so don’t worry.  I was, however, being pushed around left and right.  It was madness.

We made it to the outside rather quickly and what we found there shocked me even more.  It was insanely windy; so much that it was hard to stay in one place.  There was hail coming down in sheets and it was HUGE.  It hurt like crazy.  I consciously thought, “Ow!  This is actually painful!”  There was rain with the hail of course, and it was flooding the streets.

Something you should know about Mexico is that they have very small pipes.  So when it rains, the roads really do flood and you get rivers instead.  Also, the toilets clog easily.

Anyway, there was rain and hail all over the place.  The trees were basically bending in half.  It was really cool because they have palm tree-ish trees here.  So it really looked like the videos you see of hurricanes or other natural disasters, you know?  How they show the palm trees blowing?  That’s what was happening.  There were also signs on the ground that had been blown down.

And people were scattering everywhere, still screaming.  I just did my best to follow right behind Elvira.  I did not want to get lost.  It was insane.  We ran and ran and we couldn’t see anything and there were people everywhere.  There was one point that the wind got so strong we all had to huddle against a wall to not be blown away.

This is for real, people.  No exaggeration necessary.

Post wall huddle we found our way to a little shelter.  It was this guy’s office or something, and he was ushering people inside.  There we sat, watching the madness outside.  There were car alarms going off all over the place and people honking non stop.  But it was madness in the shelter as well.  We were squished in and people were crying left and right.  Adult people.  Crying.

It was so unreal to me that I would not have even considered crying.  I was just in awe.  Fortunately, mi familia is not the freak out and cry type, either.  Nope, they were being their normal selves.  Miguel was making jokes about how he really wanted to see the circus and now it was ruined.  So that was nice.

After a while of sitting in that shelter, Elvira led us out, in an attempt to get to the car.  The hail was basically done, so that was nice.  We ran and ran and crossed mini rivers.  And then we got to the busy road.  There were three lanes of traffic going one way, then a little middle island of grass, and then three lanes going the other way.  This road was seriously flooded beyond reason.  We crossed the first set of lanes pretty easily.  We didn’t have to wait long for the cars to pass, and the river was fairly calm.  It was hard to walk though, because the whole time I had to make sure I didn’t lose my shoes. 

So then we were in the middle island waiting for all the cars to pass so we could cross the last river.  After a while, there was a break in traffic, but we just had to wait for a bus to pass.  So as the bus passes we begin to step out into the road, but as I have said about a jillion times now, it was no longer a road.  Now, just imagine to yourself what it would be like to step in a river right after a bus has driven through it.  It created waves.  Real waves.  So our little group of four pushed through these waves of water that went up to my thighs.  We knew we reached the other side when we all tripped over the curb.  It was awesome.

Really, the whole time I was like, “Is this for real?  This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.”

We made it to the car, hopped in, and sat for a second to catch our breath.  On the way home we saw cars stuck in the water, more signs on the ground, trees that were broken in half, and other things of the like.

At home we took a warm shower and ate some cereal.  The news told us that the circus had, in fact, collapsed.  It’s a good thing we ran out when we did.

Thus, here I am still living.