Prayers Please

Please keep my sister in your prayers. She is a PICU nurse and recently cared for the patient who died of the swine.flu. She stayed away from us for about 5 days and was told if she had any symptoms, that they would show up in the first 48 hours. However, yesterday (9 days after the exposure) she was diagnosed with the flu. Blood tests are forthcoming to determine if it is the regular flu or the H1.N1 strain. She came by to visit Miles this past Monday.

Please keep our family and my sister in your prayers.

Home Sweet Home...

We made it back from LA. The usually 6 hour trip took us almost 9. We had to take several detours due to high water, but luckily we like to take back roads and can navigate with a map pretty well. The last city we saw gas was Jasper, TX. Everything south of there was either out or didn't have electricity to pump it. We saw lots of devastation in East Texas - tons of downed trees, power lines, trees on homes and cars, torn up barns. It looked like it was tornadoes instead of a hurricane. Speaking of, we had tornado warnings all around us in LA from the remnants of Ike coming through. Fortunately they all missed us. It's a good thing. We were in a mobile home (with a permanent roof structure over it) with no where to "hide" from the twisters!
Our neighborhood is fairly new. The oldest sections are 5 years old. Our section is only 3. Almost everyone has sections of their fences or the entire fence down. Luckily, that is all the damage we had. We were very lucky because we didn't even board up any of the windows. Our next door neighbor, not so lucky. They stayed with a relative in the area and didn't come back to check until after the storm passed. By that time, it was too late. They lost 50% of their roof. This caused rain and wind to get inside, soaking the insulation (foam and the blown in kind). The ceilings couldn't handle the weight and just collapsed. The wind blew the wet insulation on everything - furniture, walls. They have a total mess on their hands.

I am sure most of you have been watching the news and our neighbors to the south - Clear Lake, Galveston, etc. didn't fare that well either. Most of their homes were completely leveled...nothing but pilings left standing. It is very devastating to South Texas.

We know how lucky we were and can't thank God enough for watching over our house while we were gone. We just pray for all the others that were hit the hardest for their health, safety, and strength to rebuild again.

Below are some pics of the fence damage....

Evacuating to Higher Ground...

Brazoria County is under a mandatory evacuation, beginning Thursday 8AM. We're at the northern part of the county, but Emergency Mgmt said it didn't matter. We could still have 1-3 Category force winds here. We were going to stay if it was just under a voluntary evac, but mandatory....they said this would mean that if something happened to us, well, we were screwed. No medical, no police, no grocery stores, nothing. Mandatory means everything will be closed.

As soon as Dean gets home from Dallas, we are headed out to north Louisiana to some family property out. There is no phone at the house and the closest "town" is 25 miles away, so I'm not sure how connected to the world wide web we will be. My parents and friends may be joining us, but we haven't heard for sure yet.

Keep us all in your thoughts.

The Cone of Unpredictability

That is what this stupid cone should be called. Depending on which computer module you see, the tracks are changing multiple times a day. As of 1PM, this is the current track. Dean is now leaving Dallas tonight, instead of tomorrow. He has already sent me a "Preparation List" (I kid you not) which includes items to bring in from the backyard that could be possible projectiles, strapping down the lid and doors on the bbq pit, gassing truck, packing clothes (in the event we evac), food and Maddie's stuff. Brazoria county is a coastal county and has already evacuated one zip code (not ours) but there is another news conference by the Sheriff scheduled for 5:30 to determine if any other evacs are necessary and if the storm has changed its route AGAIN.

The "cone" definitely impacts us, but probably not directly. More than likely just 5-7 inches of rain with some tropical storm force winds... But if it will be worse, we will be headed to north LA tomorrow morning. Keep us and all the other Texans in your prayers.

Buckling down...

It looks like trouble for the Texas Gulf Coast this week....Trop.ical Storm/Hurri.cane (not upgraded as of yet) Eduar.do is going to crash into Galv.eston tomorrow. My office let us go at 3:30 today to go home and prepare ourselves and is closed tomorrow. (Lucky me, IT people get to "work from home.") Being the Gulf.Coasters that we are, we were mostly ready. A last gas tank full of gas for the truck, fill up the bathtubs with water, buy 5 gallons of drinking water and 80 pounds of ice. For all you Northerners who have never gone through a hurricane and are thinking all of this preparing might be a little excessive....let me share a story with you.

In 2005, the year of back-to-back hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, we evacuated the Hou.ston area along with my parents, grandparents, good friends and everyone's animals to our lake.house in Living.ston. What normally took us 1 1/2 hours, took 4 and this was only because we left the night before everyone else did. Rita was predicted to hit Hou.ston, thus the evacuation, however, she had a different plan, and changed her course. She stayed over Living.ston/East Texas for 14 hours straight, dumping inches upon inches of rain and very strong winds. Pushing the water across the lake hard enough to breach the dam. We had zero damage to the house, but the water pushed by the wind destroyed the deck, slide, pier, and yard. Below are a couple of pics....

Before Rita

During Rita

an 18 foot wave on a LAKE - shot from the 3rd story

After Rita

So believe you me, when the newscasters predict a hurricane in our area, we are on our mark and ready to go. The pantry is stocked and we are ready to settle in for the long haul. Please keep us, my family and friends and everyone else in Eduar.do's path, in your prayers this week.

P.S. By the end of this posting, it is now predicted it won't actually hit us until tomorrow afternoon because its slowing down. Slowing down can only mean one thing....gaining strength.