The Dailies

Word of the Day

Gossamer (n./adj., GAHSS-uh-murr)

A film of cobwebs that spreads over bushes and trees, often seen in autumn, or something that is light, thin, and delicate. Also a hairy orange monster who chases Bugs Bunny.

Gif of the Day

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Link of the Day

The Houston Chronicle - 51 Inches

The Houston Chronicle is playing with cheat codes. You are not supposed to be able to turn out this kind of quality journalism days after the biggest natural disaster in millenia hits your city. But that's what they did, telling the story of Hurricane Harvey by interweaving the stories of five individuals:

Just before 1 a.m. Saturday, Arceneaux returned to bed.

Then a violent burst of wind hit the house.

His wife grabbed the baby, Noah, and ducked to the side of the bed; Arceneaux jumped down. They ran for their girls, upstairs. Before they reached the bedroom door, the pressure in the house dropped, as if something sucked the air out. Their ears popped.

The walls hummed and shook. The house roared. Like a freight train rolling through the living room.

They screamed for their daughters.

Then the tornado hit. It tore the roof off Laila's room, blew out her window, and shot glass into her back as she slept. It ripped her bedroom door off the hinges and split it in half. It yanked the living room's thick glass French doors off the frame and threw them 100 feet against the backyard fence.

"Run! Run! Run!" Sekoya yelled up the stairs.

A second passed. The girls didn't appear. Sekoya thought she had lost them.

Then, Laila was there, running downstairs. Another long second passed. They still couldn't see Nikko. Everyone else was at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, yelling.

Suddenly, she was there by their sides.

The family ran into the master closet, collapsed on the floor, the girls sobbing and screaming. Laila, 14, complained that her back hurt; Sekoya lifted her daughter's shirt and found five or six cuts, glass embedded in flesh. Arceneaux called 911.

Then they waited, huddled together in the dark.

Take ten and read the whole thing.

TagsJournalismHoustonHurricane HarveyMultiple angles51 inchesKingly writing?