The roar after the storm

Sooner or later, Hampton Roads is going to be visited by another Irene, or Isabel, or some other storm with a pretty name and an ugly intent.

We'll hunker down in our burrows, awaiting the crash and eyeing the telltale drips of rain driven through walls and windows. We'll watch TV right up until the moment the electricity goes kaput. And then we'll sit in the dark and wait for the howl of the wind to stop.

And when it does, it'll be replaced by an entirely different sound: Of a hundred unmuffled internal combustion engines.

Late on the Saturday visit of Irene, the two Luzzatto adults headed out to walk two desperate dogs. Despite the fact that we live smack in the middle of greater metropolitan Suffolk, our neighborhood is ordinarily so quiet that I feel guilty when one of the dogs barks at a shadow.

That evening walk represents a few minutes of quiet time for Mom and Dad to catch up on the various doings of the day. Not on that Saturday.

As we left the yard, we tried to exchange a word or two, only to see them carried away on a current of exhaust. It was literally too loud to talk. We circumnavigated the neighborhood, occasionally shouting at each other.

Sunday night, I dreamt I was sleeping in a bed surrounded by leaf blowers.

The difference couldn't be more deafening between the aftermath of Irene and the aftermath of her sister. Eight years before, when Isabel arrived with our youngest daughter, those first nights after the storm were some of the quietest I can remember. Dark, too.

There was more cleanup back in 2003, more damage to fix. But when night came and it was too dark to work, the neighborhood fell into a hush I'd never heard before in civilization.

It lasted for a few nights, swallowed a few block parties. But as the novelty of the 17th century - and cold showers and food - wore off, the quiet and the darkness disappeared.

The generators arrived.

At first, they were rare, almost a novelty. Their numbers seemed to double each day, until by the end of the week, generators were everywhere.

And, incrementally, the bonhomie began to fade outside closed doors and windows as we all returned to our modern lives. Televisions flickered in the dark.

I'm no Luddite. I like electricity a lot. I don't particularly like cold showers, or hot ice cream.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss those startling moments immediately after Isabel, when the stars seemed to form a roof on the sky. When the silence pressed in on us like the wind just had. I miss sipping wine in the coal-black backyard of my neighbors' house, deep-frying dinner on the grill by candlelight because it was the only place to cook.

Irene's aftermath indicates those days will never return.

This time around, we were prepared. This time around, the generators began roaring before the storm finished. This time around, I'm shopping for a generator for our house.

Truth be told, I don't miss Isabel, the storm that plunged us back a few centuries. Or the trees that closed roads and crushed houses. I don't miss the eight days without hot water for a new baby and her old father.

I don't miss the misery and mayhem that I saw and wrote about.

But I do miss that deep and simple quiet, the one that never quite followed Irene because it never had a chance.

Donald Luzzatto is The Pilot's editorial page editor. Email: donald.luzzatto@pilotonline.com.