I can't believe how fabulous a little girl Sarah is!! Russ and I are very blessed. Russ spent all day Thursday preparing for the worst. He put plywood on the windows and doors and we were ready for anything. He also tyed down the play set and the little airplane. On Friday we did final preparations and Russ put peepholes in the door and one window so we could look out. Janet had to get her hair done and then we went to get her. We came home and had a nice evening.
At around 3 a.m. our power went out and Sarah woke up hearing the wind and rain. We all tried to sleep on the couch together. I have never heard such winds and noises. At around 4ish we heard a loud crash and saw that a huge part of our tree went down most of it on the roof. Russ went into the attic to see if everyonthing was OK and there was nothing moving upstairs so we felt that we were ok. We had put ear plugs in Sarah's ears and she fell asleep. Uncle Ken text messaged Russ at 6:45 to let us know that we were in the eye of the storm and we had more coming. My sister also texted us and I called her to let her know we were ok. At around 8 we looked outside and it was still raining but a neighbor was outside cutting down trees that had fallen and the real work began. I thought there had been a war on outside our backyard and front yard.
This is the letter Russ wrote to his boss about the ordeal: We finished hurricane preparations Friday evening, and hunkered down. The storm started to hit in earnest around 11:30 and at 3:00 a.m., we lost power. Sarah woke up from the wind noise and we all huddled in the living room. Around 4:30, we heard a crash on the roof and figured a tree had fallen on the house. I looked in the attic and didn’t find any holes in the roof, so I figured we were probably still watertight. Around 7am, my brother texted me to say we were in the eye of the storm, and my SIL texted us to say we had another 5-6 hours that would probably be worse than the front of the storm. So, we stayed hunkered down. The winds continued to subside to a point where we were able to sneak outside the house without being blown down the street. I couldn’t get to the back yard since the tree that fell on our house also fell across the gate to the back yard, and the door to the back yard was boarded up. Once I was able to remove the branch blocking the gate, I saw that the top 35-40’ of a 50’ tree had snapped and fallen onto our roof and side fence. There was tree debris everywhere in the yard. Limbs of all sizes were scattered everywhere, and you couldn’t take a step without walking on branches. It looked like a war zone. The top 20’ of a tree was hanging upside down on the power lines swaying in the wind gusts.
It was still windy and rainy, but we realized the storm was over. The back side must have dissipated. Later, we found out the eye passed to the east of us and we had already ridden out the back side of the storm.
A neighbor came with his chainsaw and we cut the tree off the house. Still windy, still rainy, and he was up on our roof in sandals cutting limb after limb. In the process, we lost our gutters and our telephone line. But, the roof seemed to be intact still. Other neighbors showed up to help haul pieces of timber and branches to the curb. After about an hour of that, we were only about 1/3 done. I went to the chainsaw guy’s house to help him clear his yard since he was working all alone. I also helped another neighbor clear her yard. We took a quick bicycle tour of the neighborhood and saw a lot of damage to homes and trees. A lot of people were clearing debris, but there were a lot of homes that had been evacuated and had large trees uprooted and laying on their sides. We saw one home where a huge pine tree had blown over and fell into a house chopping off one wall. All you saw was a brick wall, an uprooted tree, then the rest of the house. There was a pine tree being held up by electrical lines, a lot of trees uprooted and power lines down. One neighbor had 5 holes in his roof from fallen branches.
We were without power, phone, satellite, internet and water. Cell service that had worked during the height of the storm was gone by morning. We spent the night with the windows open ironically praying for a breeze. The air was still, humid and hot, and the mosquitoes were swarming Sarah. I spent 3 hours fanning the two of them so they could sleep. Finally, the “cold” front came through bringing rain, but not much cold. We had to close windows to keep the rain out, but that also cut off any breeze from the front. We were miserable, but felt really lucky to have an intact family and an intact home.
The next day, we packed up, took Janet (an elderly woman who sheltered with us) back to her apartment so she could stay with another friend who had power, and we drove to San Antonio . This morning, we heard that we had power restored, so we packed up and started driving back to Houston . But, I-10 ( San Antonio to Houston ) was running between 0 and 20mph, and we had 200 miles to go. After over 30 minutes on the road, we turned around and drove 5 minutes back to my mom’s house. We’ll try again tonight, probably between midnight and 2am to avoid traffic. I just didn’t want to be stuck on the freeway for 8 or 9 hours trying to make a 3-hour trip.
I’m stealing some internet access from someone in the neighborhood to write this. Mom doesn’t have internet. From what I can tell, the Houston campus is operational, but I still have a lot of cleanup to do at the house. I’m debating as to whether I’ll make it in to the office on Tuesday. It seems slow, judging by emails. So, I might just take one extra day and try to get my home back in order, fix the phone line, call insurance, etc.
I’ll let you if I make it back to Houston . If the internet is working, I’ll check back in to make sure there aren’t any fire drills to address. Otherwise, I’ll probably be cleaning the freezer, debris, washing clothes, putting away plywood, etc.
I wish I had pictures but left the digital at school. I will develop the ones in the camera and get a CD so I can post pictures. All in All, we did great and thanked G_D everynight for that. I will say that I bought a very strong house with very wimpy trees 12 years ago.
