Got our power back on around forty-five minutes ago and everything now is fine. Lost it about 1:50 a.m. after the storm passed over land. We had no damage at all and only had a few suckers off the trees to pick up. Have a lawn service coming Wednesday to clean up the yard properly.
We did not hear the winds outside at all and the only way we could tell the wind was blowing was to look out the windows and see the tops of trees moving. All in all it was not too scary for us. We have seen much worse before. When we saw that it was veering more Northwest, we had a sigh of relief. We had been watching a TV reporter report down by our bay house and it did not flood there and reported the winds were 30 to 40 mph and after it crossed land, the water receded quickly out. Don't know when they will let us in to see it, but with all returning people the next few days we will probably wait a few days to go down and check on it. Also, my boat seemed to be fine also as she showed some of the boat docks down there and they looked good and not flooded either.
Thank goodness we did not get a direct hit and only two buildings downtown had blown out windows and those will probably be reinstalled by tomorrow. No flooding downtown either or any of the bayous near the city. Having put new lines in our neighborhood, last year and the year before,we did not have any really hard rains either so what rain we got was minimal and caused no problems. How lucky we Texans were in Houston. Our Mayor and administrators have been coming on the news telling us of their plans to have those evacuating the last few days returning and hoping that the gridlock won't happen again. Some of the cities are not opening until they are cleaned up and road routes all open so if they don't listen they will not get into their areas and will have to locate somewhere else until they announce they have opened. Only critical workers for the Galveston area are being let in and others are being stopped at the Causeway by DPS officers and told to turn around and go back the way they came and telling them to add a few days to their vacations provided by Hurricane Rita. Most schools on the island will not open until Thursday and they should be ready by then they say. One of the water treatment facilities was damaged and some were told when they got back to their homes to boil their water before drinking or cooking in it.
Reporting from Deep in the Heart of Texas, we feel very lucky to not be hit head on, but pray for the safety of those that were hit so very hard. I-10 East is closed in some areas and if you decide to go back you will not be let off at any of the exits in those places and there are areas further that they will not let you proceed on I-10 East. They have closed the whole freeway down to incoming traffic. Lake Charles, La. was hit pretty hard and I heard on the news that one of the casino boats was completely turned around from its mooring and then the water went out of the lake and it was sitting aground and they would have to wait for water to return before they could decide how they were going to turn it around like it was sitting before the hurricane hit. Also heard that the Isle of Capri was really hit hard and had a lot of damage to their casino.
Don't know if I mentioned this before but on Friday I got an email from Harrah's in Lake Charles inviting me to come over for the weekend. Replied, "No thank you, I will pass this time because of the uncertainty of where the hurricane is going to land", here in Texas or there in Louisiana. They had already predicted it was turning Northwest and landfall had changed to the Texas-Louisiana border and were told it went in at Cameron and proceeded Northwest to the Beaumont, Port Arthur and Lake Charles, La. areas and had had great damage there. Nothing as bad as Katrina was, but bad.
All I had today was a radio on batteries so I listened to it for the latest news most of the day. The house was still cool so we stayed still except for going out to eat. All the animals we had in the house had settled down and seemed to be happy it was over. My daughter went home tonight with her animals and she had not lost power so had a nice cool house to go home to and with us having no A/C for the day, she felt happy to be home.
Naomi |
