Two days before Bob hit, my daughter and I drove down from Cambridge where we lived, to Falmouth. I had my work in a show in Chilmark with fellow photographer Mitch Epstein and the opening was Sunday night.

I can’t remember why but I needed for us to make a certain ferry and the lot was full in Falmouth. I ended up paying to park across the way from the entrance to the Palmer lot in a guy’s back yard, between his house and garage, under a big elm tree. He and I agreed on $20. I paid him, and my nine-year daughter Maru and I took the shuttle down to Woods Hole and got on the ferry.

I remember clearly how the night of the reception, the night before the hurricane hit, how everyone was talking about the storm and the work hanging on the walls seemed secondary. There was still a good chance the storm would veer off and miss us. It was hot and fetid, late August, and the air wasn’t moving. We were staying at Carol Lazar’s, an old friend since I had taught for her when she ran the Chilmark Photography Workshop in the early 1980s. Our family home near Highmark on Middle Road in Chilmark was rented, and by this time I had told the tenants to get out as the house was too exposed with too much glass facing the south shore to be safe.

When the storm came we hunkered down, protected from the big wind as Carol’s house sat down in the lee of a hill. We lost power. I recall it all being over quickly, maybe an hour or so, with one short vicious gust of wind that shook the building. As soon as the wind died down, Maru I got in the car and headed for Squibnocket Beach to see what the surf looked like. The access road to the beach first goes up a little hill then, as you start to go down to the parking lot, you don’t see the water until you bear to the left a little. As we came around that corner, there was no parking lot. Waves were going right over it into the pond behind. I’d never seen anything like it. Big waves crashing down, and very loud.

We got back in the car and headed to Beetlebung Corner to see how our house was.

Much of Middle Road was like an obstacle course with trees down and branches strewn across it. At the entrance to Highmark, we could only get up the dirt road until it forks, then downed trees blocked our way. We couldn’t walk up our own driveway as many tall pine trees were downed like pickup sticks. We hiked up the hill and got to the house, now almost surrounded by felled trees. The house wasn’t damaged but had three tall pines simply leaning up against it. On our land, which is about an acre, we lost 37 trees that day.

We had planned on staying at Carol’s for a few days until the renters left and then would move back into our house and stay through Labor Day. As there was no power and little food and no way to prepare it, staying became less appealing day after day. I famously got the last pizza from the Chilmark Store, would drive up to Herring Creek to stand in line where there is a pipe with fresh water to fill bottles. After a few days we gave up, got a ride to the ferry and headed home. On the shuttle bus back to Falmouth from Woods Hole we could see some damage from Bob. At one point I looked out the window to see a clear swath through the woods, as though a small tornado had touched down and cleared a path. I had a vision of my car; squashed under that big elm tree I’d parked it under. When we got to it, sure enough, the elm tree was down, but it had fallen right next to my car, which was untouched. We loaded up and drove back to Cambridge.

Neal Rantoul is a career artist and teacher. He has taught photography since 1971.