Why Hurricane Beryl seems straight out of the Book of Job – The Forward
North Padre Island awaits landfall of Hurricane Beryl in Corpus Christi, Texas. Photo by Getty Images
By Robert Zaretsky
July 10, 2024
Anyone who has been following events in my hometown of Houston knows that Beryl – the Category 1 hurricane that struck Houston three days ago – has been compared to other hurricanes we have weathered, notably Ike and Harvey, as well as the derecho that struck just a few months ago.
But there is another type of rapidly rotating storm system that offers a more telling and, well, biblical parallel to the event that, as I write this, has left over a million residents without power, not just for their air conditioning, but also for oxygen and dialysis machines. (One woman died yesterday when her oxygen machine, which she had converted to battery power, failed.)
Yet, as the mercury heads toward triple digits today, Beryl has also left us without an answer as to why this happened. This is a situation not unlike that of Job, when he became a confused old man without a home or family and also demanded an answer. After an agonizingly long wait, Job is confronted with a whirlwind, a supernatural storm, from which a thunderous voice offers an answer that, to be quite honest, is not really an answer.
A Texas Standard version of the Book of Job, aided by Robert Alter’s brilliant translation, stars a Houston energy customer, his skin boiling in the heat and his hand clutching a dying smartphone. At his wit’s end, he exclaims, “He knows the way with me, tests me, and I come out with a golden credit score.” Taking a sip of warm Gatorade, he continues, “I followed his path and didn’t pay my bills. I didn’t turn away from his advice, keeping it in a drawer where I also keep homeowners association warnings about my faded siding.”
And yet, all this was in vain. “I yell at you and you don’t answer. I stand still and you don’t watch me. I stare at this screen and you can’t keep a map for power outages. Where in Genesis is the creation of Whataburger, whose map has proven to be more reliable than yours?” The customer looks at his darkened screen and groans, “But he only wants one thing and who can dissuade him? He will do what he wants – which is to not worry about anything and be left alone.”
Our local deity, CenterPoint Energy, responds to their customer in a whirlwind of shock and awe, euphemisms and distractions. “Who is this that is disrupting my board meeting with words, not knowing that we own it? Gird up your loins, miserable Houstonian, so I can remind you that I set the measurements of those power lines and stretched them across the suburbs. Furthermore, I remain committed to working around the clock to restore service as safely and quickly as possible and have mobilized nearly 12,000 field personnel to support our restoration efforts.”
The customer waves the Gatorade bottle skyward and interrupts: “But why weren’t these 12,000 helpers, many of them from other states, in position before the storm? Only today, three days after the storm, a caravan of repair vehicles from neighboring Alabama drove past me. Why?”
The voice from the whirlwind thunders a little defensively, “I don’t have that specific information.” But no matter, because the voice continues, “Have you ever driven the morning limo that was supposed to take me to my corner suite high above you? Can you send lightning bolts along the way and can you say, ‘Amount Due: $514.21’?”
The customer concedes the last point, but still wonders how preparations for the storm had gone. After all, the customer and his relatives had been tracking the storm’s path for days and knew it would reach Houston. “Were you not aware of its arrival and that when it did arrive it would be bigger than the Behemoth, if not quite as big as the Leviathan?” After a long pause, the voice from the hurricane replied, “Well, it had a bigger impact on our area than many expected.”
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