The weatherman on the TV is very excited about Hurricane Helene. He is excited because this major tropical depression gives him more than his normally allotted airtime. On any given evening broadcast, he will have as many as 3 brief opportunities to talk about boring weather.

“Sunrise tomorrow is at . . . blah, blah, blah.”

“There’s a 40% chance of rain this weekend.”

Which means there’s a 100% chance that the local forecast might be 80% wrong.

Tonight is different. Mister Weatherman owns center stage. Police activity, school board changes, city council wars all take a back seat to the storm headed our way. In tonight’s segment, he gets to talk about something of true meteorological significance.

He speaks of decreasing barometric pressure readings in terms of millibars. This sounds important. His digital weather map is spinning in the background. He points to the center and hits his clicker.

“Air speeds near the eyewall of this storm are strong enough to take a Floridian mobile home and relocate it to Georgia in a thousand pieces.”

No. He doesn’t say it like this, but that’s what he means.

“Helene will be a CAT 4 by the time it makes landfall.”

Of course, this guy is inside a studio in Columbus, Georgia. He is not on the coast of the Big Bend in Florida. But he is concerned because this storm is moving fast along its projected path, and the path brings it right to our doorstep.

“We could see damaging winds in the range of 70 to 80mph.”

Then he adds this: “I’ve never known of a storm to bring this kind of wind this far inland to west-central Georgia.”

It was just after midnight, October 5th, 1995. My phone rang. It was the Security Officer on duty at Callaway Gardens.

“Sorry to bother you but we’ve got trees down across the road in the Cottages.”

“Okay. Did you call Lance?”

“Yes sir. He said to call you. That he’d meet you at the shop.”

“I’ll be there in a few. Thanks.”

It’s not unusual, in a resort setting, that downed trees require immediate attention. If a guest were to need medical attention, or if a fire broke out, or if someone called an ambulance, trees blocking the road would delay or prevent access to the major guest areas of the Gardens. I had to go.

I got dressed in the dark. I could hear rain pelting the roof over my head. I really had no idea what the scene would be like once I got to the shop, but I knew it probably wouldn’t be good.

I arrived first. All the chainsaws had been prepped the day before. I unlocked the shop and grabbed the keys to my truck. I had just put 4 saws in the bed of the truck when Lance showed up.

“This may be the hardest rain I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Rain suits are good only to a point. We got in the truck and drove up to the entrance to the cottages. At that point we hadn’t seen a single tree blown down. I remember thinking, “We’ll be out of here pretty soon.”

We pulled through the gate and turned right toward Mulberry Lane. Right in front of us was a pine across the road. We both got out. I grabbed the Stihl 026. It cranked the second pull.

The objective in a situation like this is simple. Open a path in the road. That’s all. The real cleanup can be done later. Make two or maybe three cuts and roll the trunk off to the side. Just clear enough to make it passable.

My boots are soaking wet by now. The power in the cottage area is out. No streetlights. I’m running a chainsaw by the headlights from the truck. We are drenched and we roll the first one out of the way.

Not far ahead is another tree. We pull forward and repeat. Then another, and another, and another. We cut maybe ten trees to the back of Sparkleberry Lane where we get the truck turned around. I was ready to get dried off and get back in bed.

We didn’t go far before we ran into a tree across the road. I turned to Lance.

“Didn’t we just cut our way in here?”

We both had a sinking feeling that we had gotten ourselves in a mess, but if we were gonna get home, we had to cut our way out again.

The rain is harder, blowing sideways in sheets. The wind overhead is howling like a pack of wolves. We can hear pines snapping all around us. They are falling faster than we can cut them out of the way.

I’ve only ever been in one situation where I thought maybe I might die. Tonight was that moment.

Lance looks and screams over the roar of the storm.

“This is stupid,” he shouts. “We shouldn’t be out here.”

There was nowhere to hide. We had no choice but to work our way through the maze. But as soon as we got clear of the “last tree”, we headed back to the shop and went home for the rest of the night.

“I’ll see you back in a few hours,” I told him.

That was hurricane Opal. It hit the Gulf Coast as a CAT 4 storm with wind speeds of 150mph. It was still packing 80 to 90mph winds by the time it got to us. It remains the worst force of nature I have ever witnessed in my life.

The Gardens opened in 1952. Hurricane Opal was responsible for the first closing of the Gardens to ever take place. For 43 years, 7 days a week, the gates had never been closed to the public. But the damage was just too catastrophic.

We were without power for 8 days. Our grounds crews became makeshift logging crews non-stop for four months. Every day we reported to work. Every day we cut a new opening in another road. We removed trees off the roofs of buildings. We dug stumps and filled holes. We cleared the azalea gardens and the walking trails. Everywhere we worked there was a tangle of trees.

It was hard to see an end to it all. Dr. Barrick, VP of Horticulture, wanted us to keep records of the trees lost to the storm. Every crew leader, by area, made a list. By the end of January, the tally was over 6,000 trees that had been cut, chipped, and removed from the property.

There was more to be done. More trees down in remote areas. But spring was on our heels. The Gardens needed gardeners, not loggers. So, in February, we went back to our usual assignments.

When Mr. Weatherman said he had never heard of a storm with winds “this far inland” I knew he either didn’t remember or wasn’t around for Opal. That night will never leave me.

I would never wish a storm like Helene on anyone. Some have been spared. Some have suffered unimaginable loss. Everyone near it respects its power.

The big ones stay with you.