Escape from Georges Island

It was a dark and stormy night .... ok, that sounds corny but it's the truth. It was shortly after midnight on the 29th of October, 2003. We had all been warned. We had all ignored the warnings as we'd heard them for years and pretty much nothing ever happened except a bit of rain and a big blow. However, this was a night to remember; one I don't ever want to repeat. It was the night Hurricane Juan laid waste to Nova Scotia while we all cowered in our basements in disbelief. I was home alone as my husband was at sea, working with the offshore oil project. His ship had made a run into port just ahead of the storm and was tied up at Woodside, in Dartmouth, just across the harbor from Georges Island. During the height of the storm, his ship had to start their engines and run the props to keep the vessel against the wall because the lines tying it up kept breaking. Some of the highest winds of the storm were recorded at Georges Island.
As the winds whipped around the metro area and flattened most of the massive trees in Point Pleasant Park, strange events were taking place on Georges Island. Parts of the old bunkers collapsed, opening tunnels to the elements. The Woolfins now had a way out. Since they are very lightweight, they didn't stand a chance in the high winds. The ever changing directions of the gale plucked them out of their safe, comfortable dens and scattered them far and wide, following the path of the hurricane as it cut a swath through the central portion of the province. About an hour after the storm made landfall near Halifax, it hit here at home with a vengence. Large maple trees were uprooted and broken to bits. Silos were torn off barns. I cowered in fear inside my house, in the dark, without power, praying that my windows didn't implode from the force of the tempest. Little did I know that a curious new lifeform was populating my neighborhood. The Woolfins were on the move!