around the nieghborhood:
lots and lots of trees losttotally stealing this part from my email so I don't have to retype it!:
{The hurricane was...interesting. No real rain until midnight. We lost power around 3:30am Saturday. The winds started blowing hard from 2-4am and heavy heavy rain from 6-8am. Of course, the boys (by this I mean Brandon, Jacob, AND Rick) slept through it all. Me, not so much. I got about a half an hour sleep. We had the windows boarded up, which was good since there was definitely some debris flying around. Heard a couple loud ka-thunks, which made me nervous. One of them was the large limb from our ash tree hitting the room. No damage though. It's kind of funny; we had planned to have the tree guys in this fall to take out that limb and thin out the two oaks in front, and Ike took care of all of that for us. Saturday morning, everyone was outside surveying and starting clean-up before the rain even stopped drizzling. }
The cities (MP) water treatment facility was running on back up generator so we were trying to avoid using the water inside as much as possible. Rick and the boys were taking showers outside and I was using the water in the bathtub for bathing. It makes for some bracing baths! The plant is now back up and running but all of southeast Texas is under a "boil water" advisory, so I'm not looking so stupid for stocking up on water anymore, eh neighbors?
The cities (MP) water treatment facility was running on back up generator so we were trying to avoid using the water inside as much as possible. Rick and the boys were taking showers outside and I was using the water in the bathtub for bathing. It makes for some bracing baths! The plant is now back up and running but all of southeast Texas is under a "boil water" advisory, so I'm not looking so stupid for stocking up on water anymore, eh neighbors?
We got power back after about 60 hours, which was nice, since we had been told a few hours earlier to expect it to be closer to 4 weeks. Rick was about to order a generator but put it off for now. I feel incredibly guilty for having electricity when so many people don't. I 'm still trying to use it sparingly, running fans instead of the a/c, constantly turning off lights, using flashlights to go grab things quickly. I realized I didn't miss the tv or computer, but I really missed ice cubes, the vacuum and my washing machine. As I typed that, I realized how one dimensional my life must seem.
Meadows Place is still under a 9pm-5am curfew and will be for a little while. The independant and active police force is one of the reasons we chose Meadows Place; the first night after the hurricane, they were circling our block two-three times an hour. We're in an area that wasn't as hard hit, so hopefully that will help with looting and such, but you just never know, especially as temper flare as the weeks go on without electricity. You know Rick takes precautions at night, so we're ok on that front. I worry more about him driving around the city. The area has a special dispensation to come down on looters and burglers hard with severe jail time and fines, so we haven't heard too many reports of it on the west side.
I had filled my car up with gas last Thursday, but Rick didn't get that chance so he was at about 1/2 tank. He's been out putting in full days of work, so using gas to do site work for the signals. I've been avoiding using mine so that he has it for back-up and today I had him switch with me so that I could give Jacob a ride while he did field work. I loaded the kids up with the portable dvd player, water and snacks and went and got in line at one of the gas stations. I was prepared for a multi-hour wait, but we were in and out in about 45 minutes. Everything was still orderly and polite. Some places are still cash only, so I was glad that we had gone and withdrawn extra from the emergency savings account. Found out later that Rick was also able to top off the tank in mine as well, so he has the means to get around for work for a few more days.
Jacob was supposed to have his check-up ultrasound on his kidney today (he was born with a small amount of fluid on his right kidney and they like to check on it now and then to make sure it is functioning and growing correctly) but they rescheduled that for tomorrow morning, so that gets us out of the house, and it's only about 10 minutes away. Originally school was scheduled to start on Wednesday, but they've pushed it off for at least another day. Brandon thought that was pretty cool, until he was informed that they still have to make up those days. Since there was a Hobby Lobby up and running right there near the gas station we went in and bought the boys some craft supplies and models and such to help keep them entertained.
