On August the fifteenth a hurricane was predicted to hit the coast of Sarasota. It made a sharp and surprising turn, so we weren’t exactly expecting it, and there was trouble getting out for some of the students. I had the means of evacuation, but my daughter, who studies meteorology, had an opportunity to do reporting for the Weather Channel and I agreed to stay with her. In any case, I wasn’t the only one: Marianne Stuart, Donald Goldston (Davonte Gold), Tom Marshall, and Eric Osborne all stayed at the Ranch. Some of us had experience in storms and some of us had no choice and none of us thought it would be as bad as it turned out. We had plenty of food and water, and we boarded up all the windows and did normal storm-preparation chores.

We lost power about six thirty, and shortly after that, Lilian Avery arrived with more provisions. She was excited to have a hurricane party.

Everybody came to my room, except for Marianne. We had not spoken since her interview with the paper. In my room the rest of us talked, we played cards, we drank wine; she may have heard us through the thin walls. The storm didn’t sound too bad at that point, just lots and lots of rain. Eric had told me earlier that the rooms we were in never flooded, so I thought we were safe.

I don’t mean to blame him, but I don’t see why he and Tom had to go out in the storm over a motorcycle. If they hadn’t done that, Marianne wouldn’t have gone out after them, and Donald and I wouldn’t have had to go out after her.

I understand that I keep veering away from the facts, the story, throwing in my commentary. I’m not a prose writer or a reporter. I’m a poet, so feelings come into it for me, and the story doesn’t always take a straight line. But I will try.

Donald and I decided Marianne went in the direction of the fiction classroom, where there was a garden shed, so we went that way. We kept as close to the buildings as we could to cut down on the wind. I had my flashlight and could see, once I passed the dormitories, that the water was rising fast. The gulf was eating up the shoreline, coming up past the mangroves, and water was just pouring down the banks. I thought that if Marianne was anywhere else on campus she’d be okay, but if she’d come down here looking for Tom and Eric she’d be in danger of drowning, literally getting washed out to sea.