Chapter 1 - A New Danger

Beyond the Category of Five



Brian Black lived an ordinary lived in an ordinary town, with an ordinary life, and an ordinary family. Everything was how it should have been, and it seemed as though nothing could alter that. No kind or sort of extraordinary event had happened in Brian's small town of Maple Glen in centuries. That, however, was about to change.



Trouble was brewing of the coast of Africa. A cluster of thunderstorms had merged to create an unusually large tropical depression. In had just been hours when the depression became Tropical Storm David, and with winds reaching sixty-six mph, it was rapidly reaching hurricane status.



Brian was lying on his new leather sofa flipping through channels when he stopped at the weather channel, for something had caught his interest. It was former tropical storm David, now a weak category three hurricanes, with sustained winds at 120 mph. Brian wondered if it would hit where he lived in the extremes of northwest Florida. He though it would maybe be exciting to have a hurricane hit, then his life wouldn't be so monotonous. Well, as it turned out, the storm was projected to hit Northwestern Florida, Southern Alabama, and it would be approaching at a breakneck speed.



Telling his dad this news in a tone that sounded almost too mirthful, Brian was soon nailing plywood to the windows, and sides of the house. “Well this stinks.” Brian groped to himself as he started the back portion of his house.



“BRIAN! BRIAN!! QUICKLY GET IN HERE!!!” his father was apprehensively hollering at him. “Brian listen to me, this hurricane is one like scientists have never seen before. Its winds just strengthened by 120 mph. in the last three hours, and its big enough to cover the state of Alaska! This is already the strongest hurricane in history, and it could still be growing. We need to get out of here NOW! Do you understand me? His fathers eyes were very stern, and looked as though a tear or two might break through.



“Uh…um, yeah, I guess I understand.” Brian replied almost as though his mind was blank.



Then Brian's mother burst through the kitchen door saying, “Wally! Wally! Forget about trying to evacuate, latest news is that there won't be time, we'll just be caught and most likely killed by the storm.” Now Brian was beginning to become afraid of David. It wasn't until now that he realized just how dangerous it was going to get.



All of the sudden an unexpected rush of wind swept over the house, and the lights went out. Apparently the wind had blown a power line down.

“The storm must be arriving even faster then we had assumed. Hurry, everyone into the living room, I have some candles and flashlights there.” Wally quickly informed them.



As the storm began to grow worse with buckets of water coming down at a time, Brian grew drowsy and eventually fell asleep. All was well until a huge gust came up and literally just tore of the roof from the house. Brian woke up and to his horror he could feel the winds trying to pull the rest of his home apart. He and his family all gathered into a corner as they could hear the second floor beginning to be ripped off. And in just a matter of seconds it was completely gone. Now the family was left to the mercy of David. Grabbing on to any kind of sturdy surface, Brian was struggling for his life. He knew that one slip-up could cost him his life.



His body was being tossed around like a rag doll, and his fingers were becoming numb. He didn't know how much longer he could hold on, and between the wind and rain it was almost impossible. Brian's muscles were beginning to give up on him, and his fingers were slowly slipping off the pole he was holding on to, until he had lost his grasp completely. Everything happened so quickly then. He was being violently thrown around by the winds, and the rain felt like 1,000 knives were being trusted into him. It was only seconds before he blacked out.



Brian awoke in a hospital bed surrounded by his mom and dad. Apparently his parents made it through without being hurt too bad, and got him to the emergency room just in time. He had suffered several broken bones in both his legs and arms. 3 ribs were broken, he had a rather large head wound, and his abdomen as well as his back and shins had been extensively bruised. Luckily, he was fully recovered in a bout a year's time.



It turns out that Hurricane David had caused over 5,000,000 deaths, over 3,000,00 injuries, and over 400 billion dollars in damage. You couldn't look anywhere without seeing complete devastation. Everywhere hit by the storm was declared a national disaster area. David had reached peak sustained wind speeds of 330 mph. making it the most powerful storm in history to impact the Eastern Hemisphere. David also earned itself a new category, the category of six. A category in which storms only as catastrophic as David could be put into.

July 19, 2005

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