Well, I was going to add some pictures here, but Blogger doesn't seem to like something about at least one of the pictures, because it keeps giving me an error when it tries to upload them... So we'll go without pictures.
There's a bit of an entertaining story (I think) behind the removal of the barricade. A couple of weeks ago we started seeing large numbers of very big trucks filled with tree limbs driving around various subdivisions. Finally there were a few signs of them in our neighborhood. Then, as I came home from work one day, I saw some near our street. So, when we heard loud truck noises a few minutes later, we went out to investigate. Sure enough, here came a large container truck, another flatbed with a crane/claw thing on it, and a bulldozer. The two big trucks pulled over in front of our next-door neighbor's house, and the claw started picking up the pile from in front of his house. Meanwhile, the bulldozer started pushing stuff from the neighbor on our other side into the street and over next to the crane. It moved on, and set to work on our pile, and then the pile from across the street. In the middle of all of this, the first truck was filled up and left, to be replaced with a new one. Once those four houses were done, all the trucks drove off and vanished, leaving the rest of our street untouched.
Now, we couldn't really complain, as we were one of the lucky houses to be cleaned up, but it did seem an odd place to start, in the middle of the street... Although they did come back from time to time over the next few days to finish up our street, for the most part. Of course, since then some new piles have been created.
Showing posts with label Ike update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ike update. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The Barricade Is Gone!
Review:
Here's the barricade, just after Ike:
Here it is, after a couple of weeks:
And now:
Well, actually, I've picked up that last little pile as well...
Here's the barricade, just after Ike:
Here it is, after a couple of weeks:
And now:
Well, actually, I've picked up that last little pile as well...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Random Post-Hurricane Observations
- It's real fun working in an office with a nice, musty smell.
- It's even more fun for those, like one co-worker, who returned to find mold thriving on some office furniture.
- You don't truly realize how big trees are until you see what they look like cut into pieces and stacked up on the side of the road.
- Or see how big a pile the branches make on the side of the road, and realize how much tree is still there.
- There is nothing more exciting in the world for a six-year-old than watching large branches get pulled out of trees by a truck.
- There is nothing more exciting for an adult than trying to get through a major, busy intersection with out a functioning light.
- It's hard to remember to stop at intersections that have non-working lights when those lights are facing the wrong direction and you can't easily see them from your direction.
- When you come to a working red light, you become impatient with the people in front of you who aren't going any where, because you're so used to the broken ones.
- It's amazing how exciting it is to find milk in a store. Or meat.
- Piles of drying, decaying branches make excellent mosquito habitats.
- Having relatives spread out along the Gulf Coast might not have been the best idea...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Latest News
I don't think I mentioned that as of Thursday, we don't have to boil our water anymore. We also were able to find some meat, eggs, butter and milk at the store yesterday. We actually managed to get some ice cream on Wednesday, so at least the most essential thing was taken care of early...
We also had fun yesterday when we were on the road and suddenly heard a loud thump from the back end of the car. But we didn't see anything, so we went on--we were almost at the store we were headed for. When we left, though, we very quickly realized that something was wrong. We pulled over, and sure enough, the left back tire was very flat. I put on the spare tire, and we saw a nail in the tire, so we assumed that was the culprit. But when they tried to repair it, they discovered there was also a large slash in it, so we had to get a new tire.
Church today was rather different. Sacrament meeting was left open for people to share experiences and gratitude from the events of the storm. Then the Primary kids went to have a combined meeting, and everybody else gathered in the cultural hall to discuss what needs are still in the ward, and other assignments. We have a few people with roof damage, and so Tuesday I'll be going with some others to clean out any wet insulation, to prevent mold. Thursday or so we'll probably do some more tree limb removal, and then we may be sending a crew to Beaumont on Saturday to do clean up. We may eventually (likely) be involved with efforts in Galveston as well, but from what we've heard crews are coming in from San Antonio and Austin. So I guess it makes sense from them to handle Galveston, and then we can go to Beaumont, since it would be much longer for them to go all the way there.
The current plan is for the schools to start up again a week from tomorrow. Many of them still don't have power, and almost all have at least some damage (except, apparently, one). A few are going to be unusable for the near future, and they also have to take care of kids from Galveston or other areas who don't have schools to go to. So, I'm sure we'll have a shortened summer vacation this next year. Although right now, Jessie and Brennan are happy enough to have the extra couple of weeks of vacation right now.
Before Ike came, we had been really working with Brennan on riding his bike without training wheels. He's gone as far as six or seven pedals around before he gets nervous and puts his feet down--he really could just do it, but he lacks confidence. Of course, sidewalks either covered with or lined with enough tree limbs to populate a small forest are not good for beginning bikers, so that project has taken a sabbatical. On the other hand, one of Jessie's friends gave her some hand-me-down rollerblades a month or so ago, and we found a pair at Goodwill in Lafayette for Brennan, and the two of them have enjoyed rollerblading through the house or on the sidewalks across the street (which are a little more clear).
Dee does go back to work tomorrow, but not full days. I guess they felt like it would be helpful for parents to have a place to take their kids for a few hours. Jessie and Brennan will be going with her, and are excited to help with the two-year-olds. I did go to work Thursday and Friday, but it was very sparse, so I don't know how much got done.
That's about all I can think of for now.
We also had fun yesterday when we were on the road and suddenly heard a loud thump from the back end of the car. But we didn't see anything, so we went on--we were almost at the store we were headed for. When we left, though, we very quickly realized that something was wrong. We pulled over, and sure enough, the left back tire was very flat. I put on the spare tire, and we saw a nail in the tire, so we assumed that was the culprit. But when they tried to repair it, they discovered there was also a large slash in it, so we had to get a new tire.
Church today was rather different. Sacrament meeting was left open for people to share experiences and gratitude from the events of the storm. Then the Primary kids went to have a combined meeting, and everybody else gathered in the cultural hall to discuss what needs are still in the ward, and other assignments. We have a few people with roof damage, and so Tuesday I'll be going with some others to clean out any wet insulation, to prevent mold. Thursday or so we'll probably do some more tree limb removal, and then we may be sending a crew to Beaumont on Saturday to do clean up. We may eventually (likely) be involved with efforts in Galveston as well, but from what we've heard crews are coming in from San Antonio and Austin. So I guess it makes sense from them to handle Galveston, and then we can go to Beaumont, since it would be much longer for them to go all the way there.
The current plan is for the schools to start up again a week from tomorrow. Many of them still don't have power, and almost all have at least some damage (except, apparently, one). A few are going to be unusable for the near future, and they also have to take care of kids from Galveston or other areas who don't have schools to go to. So, I'm sure we'll have a shortened summer vacation this next year. Although right now, Jessie and Brennan are happy enough to have the extra couple of weeks of vacation right now.
Before Ike came, we had been really working with Brennan on riding his bike without training wheels. He's gone as far as six or seven pedals around before he gets nervous and puts his feet down--he really could just do it, but he lacks confidence. Of course, sidewalks either covered with or lined with enough tree limbs to populate a small forest are not good for beginning bikers, so that project has taken a sabbatical. On the other hand, one of Jessie's friends gave her some hand-me-down rollerblades a month or so ago, and we found a pair at Goodwill in Lafayette for Brennan, and the two of them have enjoyed rollerblading through the house or on the sidewalks across the street (which are a little more clear).
Dee does go back to work tomorrow, but not full days. I guess they felt like it would be helpful for parents to have a place to take their kids for a few hours. Jessie and Brennan will be going with her, and are excited to help with the two-year-olds. I did go to work Thursday and Friday, but it was very sparse, so I don't know how much got done.
That's about all I can think of for now.
Ike Pictures, Part VI
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Ike Pictures Part V
Amazing what a bunch of LDS workers can do in a few hours...
This is our "barricade"
Tomorrow or Saturday we'll try to go by the El Lago house. We also have some pictures I can post of a subdivision across the street from Clear Lake itself.
Oh, and we no longer have to boil our water!
Ike Pictures, Part III
I'm sure there are ways I could do this in less posts, but I don't have the time or energy to figure those out right at the moment. These pictures are from the park near our house.
Ike Pictures, Part II
Our new tree for our back yard.
Note the limb in the tree
Our neighbor's front yard
Latest Ike Update
I'll put up more pictures later, but here's the latest news. I'm back at work today. Not everything's up and running yet, but we're slowly putting the pieces back together.
I spent most of the past two days helping clean up a few places. After Katrina and Rita many of us in our ward went on work trips to Louisiana to help clean up. On those trips, we noticed that after a month or more, most of the time was spent helping members, and often it was the ward leaders who needed the help (because they had put others needs before their own). Our leaders here decided that rather than have that situation occur, they'd get groups of available people together on our own to go help each other out.
A group turned up at our house around 10:30 on Tuesday. They got a big branch down out of one of the trees in the front, and then left to get lunch. They came back after an hour or so, with a couple of additional people, and we really set to work. Aside from our own yard, we also ended up helping our next-door neighbor, who had massive amounts of branches in his front yard and a very large section of tree in his back. He mentioned that he didn't know how he'd take care of the tree in the back yard, and so I told him I thought we could handle it. I was right. As the day went on, more and more people ended up at our house, and we kept working until 6:30ish.
There were still a few branches up higher in both our yards, so we arranged to meet at our house on Wednesday morning with a bigger ladder to take care of those, and then go on to other places. So that's what happened, and once our two yards were finished I went to help at some of the other places. One of those places had a very large tree fall on the roof of their garage, but it didn't do too much damage. It was a bit tricky to get off the roof, though. Oh, I should mention that there were a couple of loose branches that were proving very difficult to get out of my neighbor's tree. In the end, we looped some rope around it and tied it to the back of a truck and pulled it out. Jessie and Brennan thought that was one of the coolest things they'd ever seen. In the end, the current official tally is that the barricade of trees and branches in front of our house is the second biggest in the ward.
Oh, and during the cleanup I talked to the neighbor behind us (the one whose tree landed on our fence). He had already filed a claim with his insurance, and they will replace the fence. Between that and the help with the trees, I don't even know that we have any repair costs at all.
We're still supposed to boil water (but we just use bottled water instead). Gas is easier to find, although it can still run out quickly. Stores are re-opening, although milk, dairy, and other refrigerated things can be tricky to locate as well. The latest information is that Jessie's and Brennan's school will reopen on Tuesday. It took a lot of water damage, but I guess they think it will be OK (although by the last report it still didn't have power). A couple of other schools were very badly damaged and won't be useable any time soon, so we imagine that there might be a lot of extra students in our school for awhile. At least two of the teachers (including Brennan's kindergarten teacher from last year) have badly damaged houses, and one of the first grade teachers I guess lived on a houseboat, and it sank. She was stranded on Galveston Island for three days without food or water, but is fine now.
Traffic lights, I've learned, don't do well in hurricanes. Most signals are still either not working at all, flashing red lights, or no longer actually present (sometimes a combination of those). I think the only light I've seen that is working is one near our house, but the only problem is that you can't really see the light from the appropriate direction, because the lights have all rotated on their poles...
It will be a long time before things are really back to normal, and even longer before all traces of the impact are gone. Still, we are amazed and grateful that with the vast number of trees downed that fewer houses weren't badly damaged.
Tonight I'll try to add some more pictures as well.
I spent most of the past two days helping clean up a few places. After Katrina and Rita many of us in our ward went on work trips to Louisiana to help clean up. On those trips, we noticed that after a month or more, most of the time was spent helping members, and often it was the ward leaders who needed the help (because they had put others needs before their own). Our leaders here decided that rather than have that situation occur, they'd get groups of available people together on our own to go help each other out.
A group turned up at our house around 10:30 on Tuesday. They got a big branch down out of one of the trees in the front, and then left to get lunch. They came back after an hour or so, with a couple of additional people, and we really set to work. Aside from our own yard, we also ended up helping our next-door neighbor, who had massive amounts of branches in his front yard and a very large section of tree in his back. He mentioned that he didn't know how he'd take care of the tree in the back yard, and so I told him I thought we could handle it. I was right. As the day went on, more and more people ended up at our house, and we kept working until 6:30ish.
There were still a few branches up higher in both our yards, so we arranged to meet at our house on Wednesday morning with a bigger ladder to take care of those, and then go on to other places. So that's what happened, and once our two yards were finished I went to help at some of the other places. One of those places had a very large tree fall on the roof of their garage, but it didn't do too much damage. It was a bit tricky to get off the roof, though. Oh, I should mention that there were a couple of loose branches that were proving very difficult to get out of my neighbor's tree. In the end, we looped some rope around it and tied it to the back of a truck and pulled it out. Jessie and Brennan thought that was one of the coolest things they'd ever seen. In the end, the current official tally is that the barricade of trees and branches in front of our house is the second biggest in the ward.
Oh, and during the cleanup I talked to the neighbor behind us (the one whose tree landed on our fence). He had already filed a claim with his insurance, and they will replace the fence. Between that and the help with the trees, I don't even know that we have any repair costs at all.
We're still supposed to boil water (but we just use bottled water instead). Gas is easier to find, although it can still run out quickly. Stores are re-opening, although milk, dairy, and other refrigerated things can be tricky to locate as well. The latest information is that Jessie's and Brennan's school will reopen on Tuesday. It took a lot of water damage, but I guess they think it will be OK (although by the last report it still didn't have power). A couple of other schools were very badly damaged and won't be useable any time soon, so we imagine that there might be a lot of extra students in our school for awhile. At least two of the teachers (including Brennan's kindergarten teacher from last year) have badly damaged houses, and one of the first grade teachers I guess lived on a houseboat, and it sank. She was stranded on Galveston Island for three days without food or water, but is fine now.
Traffic lights, I've learned, don't do well in hurricanes. Most signals are still either not working at all, flashing red lights, or no longer actually present (sometimes a combination of those). I think the only light I've seen that is working is one near our house, but the only problem is that you can't really see the light from the appropriate direction, because the lights have all rotated on their poles...
It will be a long time before things are really back to normal, and even longer before all traces of the impact are gone. Still, we are amazed and grateful that with the vast number of trees downed that fewer houses weren't badly damaged.
Tonight I'll try to add some more pictures as well.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Hurricane Ike Pictures, Part 1
Here's some pictures of our house just after we got home:
The "Sword of Damocles" hanging over our van (which was parked beneath this tree the entire time we were gone)
Pre-Ike Pictures
These pictures are from the park in Lafayette, LA, the day before. Already it was getting pretty windy, and we left when it really started raining.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Ike Aftermath
Just a quick note to let everyone know that we made it back in yesterday afternoon. Lots of branches are down, including a couple on the house, but they don't seem to have severely damaged the roof. A tree in the yard behind ours was uprooted and fell, destroying our back fence. But if it had fallen any other way it would have severely damaged one house or another, so we're grateful for that.
We have power, we have water (although it currently still has to be boiled).
Later I'll try to put up some pictures. We'll probably also head down to El Lago and see if the old house we lived in before survived.
We have power, we have water (although it currently still has to be boiled).
Later I'll try to put up some pictures. We'll probably also head down to El Lago and see if the old house we lived in before survived.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Ike update
Galveston is not doing well. Having watched post-hurricane stories before, it's a very different experience when you recognize the places they're showing. I recently heard/read that every single pier in Galveston is gone.
It's frustrating, though, that they keep saying they're going to report on Clear Lake, and then they just talk about the Hilton where all the media were staying last night that took some very serious damage last night. They also like to show the boats that now live in the hotel parking lot. It'd be nice if they would give us some information about the other parts of Clear Lake.
Just listening to reports about Seabrook flooding, with no water. But the flooding isn't as bad as they feared. But it's interesting that you can have too much water and not enough water all at the same time.
I've heard that downtown isn't too bad, except for one skyscraper that lost pretty much every one of its windows. And some historic restaurant burned down during the night.
It's frustrating, though, that they keep saying they're going to report on Clear Lake, and then they just talk about the Hilton where all the media were staying last night that took some very serious damage last night. They also like to show the boats that now live in the hotel parking lot. It'd be nice if they would give us some information about the other parts of Clear Lake.
Just listening to reports about Seabrook flooding, with no water. But the flooding isn't as bad as they feared. But it's interesting that you can have too much water and not enough water all at the same time.
I've heard that downtown isn't too bad, except for one skyscraper that lost pretty much every one of its windows. And some historic restaurant burned down during the night.
Latest on Ike
Well, one of our friends who lives on the other end of the subdivision has a working answering machine, so there's some hope our power is back up. Doesn't say much for if a lot of other things are working, and if there's any damage. I'm pretty sure my office is still out of power (especially since a decent rain storm often takes out its power). The buildings where we are were just sold. Wonder if the new owner likes his investment at the moment...
Latest Ike news
Saw a report that NASA Road 1 near Clear Lake itself is clear and open. The storm surge was reportedly about 11 feet, much less than the 24 feet predicted. That should be well below anything that would put our house in danger from flooding. Winds, of course, are another matter, and I don't know when we'll know more about that.
Power will be a big issue. We're not sure yet when we'll head back. As of now, the school district is still planning on being open Monday, but I'm not sure I believe that will remain the case once they actually get out and check out the area.
Power will be a big issue. We're not sure yet when we'll head back. As of now, the school district is still planning on being open Monday, but I'm not sure I believe that will remain the case once they actually get out and check out the area.
Ike Update
Not a lot of real definite news so far. It's not the most comforting thing in the world though, to watch hurricane coverage and be able to recognize so many of the places being shown--including some that you frequently drive by.
Saw one reference that at 1:16 this morning there was still power at El Dorado and Spacecenter, which is pretty close to our house, and right near the church. We kept power at our house (based on calling there and having the answering machine pick up) until 11 ish, I think it was, but we're assuming it's now out. Or at least was for a time. No word yet on how much our area flooded, or what the damage might be.
I'll keep posting as we learn more.
Here in Lafayette, we had four or five tornado watches, but most of them weren't really super close to where we are. Lots of wind and rain all night, though. Which seems appropriate, considering what it's like at our house.
Saw one reference that at 1:16 this morning there was still power at El Dorado and Spacecenter, which is pretty close to our house, and right near the church. We kept power at our house (based on calling there and having the answering machine pick up) until 11 ish, I think it was, but we're assuming it's now out. Or at least was for a time. No word yet on how much our area flooded, or what the damage might be.
I'll keep posting as we learn more.
Here in Lafayette, we had four or five tornado watches, but most of them weren't really super close to where we are. Lots of wind and rain all night, though. Which seems appropriate, considering what it's like at our house.
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