Life in Exile

We're sitting pretty here in Austin. My son's bronchitis is clearing up, and we have open grocery stores and a full set of amusements are at our disposal. We've been sort of an information clearing center for our friends who have no power or Internet access.

Mr. Dewberry went back today to check on our house (still without power, and no estimate as to a restoration date) and to do some more clean-up. We opted to leave the kids here in Austin for health and convenience reasons. I've been figuring out a few things to do; we may even go out and find a letterbox today. We certainly need to get out of the house--we're getting a little stir crazy.

It's day-to-day on the planning and it's hard to figure out exactly what to do. 85% of the schools in our district are still without power, so you can't open the schools until you can run the electrical systems and check to make sure they're safe. On top of that, gas supplies are still tight, so there's no gas for things like school buses. They'll announce on Friday the plans for next week.

Mr. Dewberry took some supplies to last him a few days. There are many restaurants and stores open in Houston now, although the lines can be long. My zip code still has 14,000 customers without power. Our neighborhood has a lot of beautiful old trees, and those trees are splintered and lying all over power lines. Power lines are severed and there are still lines lying on the ground in lots of areas. It seems like a huge job, and the company is estimating that half of its customers will have power by next Tuesday. Hope we're in that group.

We're fine

We left Houston today to come crash at my sister's in Austin for a while. Things are frankly a mess, but we feel very lucky. My front yard is raked and our fence is sort-of repaired (at least it's standing up, but will do while we're out of town). The fridge and freezer have been completely emptied and there will be no nasty-smelling suprises waiting for us when we get back home.

A tornado touched down within a block of us, and there are large trees and limbs down everywhere. All of our trees remained upright...although half of their leaves and small branches are all over our yard. But honestly, we came through Ike just fine. Our only issue is electricity, and there still isn't a good estimate of a restoration date. My oldest woke up with bronchitis, so we really felt like it would be best to get him out of that air and get him somewhere where his lungs could recover.

This morning a trailing band of Ike smacked us with 5 more inches of rain, and as a result our bayou came close to flooding, but didn't. Many of the streets were impassable, and two of the major freeways were closed. But, eventually that water drained and we could leave.

We're exhausted and smelly...I'm waiting on my turn in the shower. I'll try to post more later, but I just wanted people to know that we're okay. I talked to Mother of Five and Pastry Princess, so I can report that all the letterboxers I know are just fine.

Thank you all for your kind notes and thoughts. I have internet access, but it's going to take me a while to get caught up. Interestingly enough, I may have had to come to Austin to find out what's going on in my own city.

If you're looking for a way to help, can I recommend monetary donations to the Houston Food Bank? I know from first-hand experience what a great job those folks do with stretching their resources.

Quick update

At 9 pm, we still have power (although it's flickered a few times. I expect outage around midnight). We are sheltered in place, but we are safe from that horridly deadly storm surge. We are both far enough inland and at a high enough elevation (54 feet if you're wondering) that we won't see water.

The winds are forecasted as category one when they get to us. They're already starting to howl, and they should be twice as strong later on. That means we're in for a screaming meanie of a night, but the damage shouldn't be that bad. Everyone hope that our oak stays upright.

If I can, I'll post an update around noon tomorrow.

Ike is Yike!

To say that we're a little nervous about Ike is putting it mildly. I moved here in 1985, so I've never been through a direct hurricane. Mr. Dewberry was here for Alicia and they lost 4 trees on their property, but in general it wasn't too terrible.

We've moved all the projectiles out of the backyard. We can't really board up because we have a brick house with aluminum-framed windows. I have plenty of water, food and batteries. We're far enough inland that there won't be any storm surge, so we mainly have to worry about wind and downed trees. I fully expect our power to go out (we lose it fairly easily in a thunderstorm). The length of the power outage estimate post-storm will determine whether we stay here or leave for a while.

Just so you know, the nightmare scenario for Houston is a Freeport landfall. That is the scenario that will push the most water into Galveston Bay and involves the most potential for catastrophic flooding. My aunt and other relatives who live in the Southeast area of Houston (Pasadena and Clear Lake) have all evacuated, but emergency managers asked those in my area to stay put. Because storm surge is what is so deadly, I think most people heeded those warnings and respected the utter importance of getting those on the coast out.

Every mile further east of Galveston Ike hits helps Houston. Not that I wish his wrath on those further east of us, but there are just so many people in our metro area.

See you on the other side & I will try and post an update afterwards. Peace.