Columnist Susan Snyder: Brother blows in with update

Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004 | 8:19 a.m.

My cell phone rang Sunday morning while we were seated on a large sandstone boulder, enjoying the morning quiet out in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Under a cloudless blue sky, against a backdrop of cliffs the color of sunset, I listened to the message from my older brother in Winter Garden, Fla.:

"It's about 1:30 here. Thought you might want to hear the hurricane. We're in the brunt of it right now. The backyard is flooded. My landscaping timbers have floated to the retention pond. I'll send you pictures of it -- whenever the power ever comes back on."

For all the aggravation of cell phones, they do come in handy.

If it weren't for the Internet and cell phones I might never have an accurate picture of what happened during and after the four hurricanes that have socked the Southeast peninsula state in a matter of six weeks.

Sure, the nationally televised hurricane reports will show us the worst. We'll see the most crowded shelter, the most twisted mobile home, the biggest fallen tree, and the one dork living in a coastal evacuation area who opted to "ride it out."

Reporters sporting rain gear that prominently display The North Face or other high-tech gear logos show us "the real story" by shouting unintelligible garble at the camera while trying to stay upright in hurricane-force winds and rain.

I had just finished looking at the photos of Ivan that my mother had sent when she called Friday night to let me know she was packed and heading to my brother's home a couple of blocks away.

This is always a relief. She turns 80 in a few months, and my biggest hurricane fear is that she'll forget about the sandbags across her front door and trip. I figure Jeanne looked a lot like Ivan, which from the photos looked a lot like Frances and Charley.

Mom's front porch furniture and plants sat on a sheet in the middle of her living room.

The views of boarded-up windows at my brother's home were from the inside. Television will show how they look on the outside, but from the inside boards make a house look (and feel) like a tomb.

Aside from that, riding out the storm looks frightful, all right.

Frightfully boring.

My brother worked crossword puzzles at the kitchen table using a battery-powered camp light. And he worked them later on the sun porch using a head lamp. My sister-in-law read a book with a flashlight.

The cat was sprawled across the top of the refrigerator.

For all the death and destruction left in its path, the real story of a hurricane is told in less spectacular, but still aggravating, chapters.

Trees still need to be removed, flooded homes need cleaning and people sit for days on end eating cold food in the dark, even if their counties and towns aren't the most flooded, most twisted, most wrecked in the state.

"It's roaring pretty good. I'll hold the phone out so you can hear," my brother's message said. "Mom is over here. This is probably the most intense of the bunch we've had. Most of the foliage was cleared out by the first -- whoop! There's a big wind. Talk to you later. Bye."

Click.