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MORE FLOODING

Not only do I have no running water,but it is now pouring down rain again!! They're expecting another 4.5 inches!!The beyues are already swolen.More flooding to be expected."AuntyEm!,Aunty Em!"
 
Hang in there Chuck. I hope you're not without water for too long. Running water in the pipes that is.
 
ramblings quickly posted here from so side of houston

Devasting....we got some really strong 110 winds heres. Lots of trees down, etc. We have curfew for the next week. Pasadena wasn't too bad where I went to check on trailer. It's still there, my storage room is ok. Got a huge limb on top of trailer, but nothing came through.
This could have been so much worse. So I am thankful that it wasn't. No electrical. But since the sun isnt out, that makes life bearable without AC. *sigh*
Neighbor next door is out looking for diesel for the generator. He let my sister's house plug into it. Sis + 3 went to Austin. I was better off here than in that POS Trlr.
It's time to move on.
I doubt anyone here will be going back to work on Monday. lol
Some areas have elect. My niece in Katy never lost power.
This was one bugger to ride out, and even though I have been through more violent ones....I'm getting rather tired of this. Time to move on...
I could write a book on the craziness and things I have seen go on during all of this. Unbelieveable.
Went to check on friends in Friendswood area, and that place looked like a war zone. Galveston is pretty much destroyed along the sea wall. Hooters is gone (LOL) A friend of mine worked at that one and sent me a picture of it yesterday. 4 pilings in the sea. Murdock's is gone, &
the Balanese Room. Somewhat icons for us in the area.
PLEASE keep the thoughts and prayers coming. At least pray we get electricity back soon. I have water, flushing toilets, plenty of food/water, etc...We ate like kings yesterday out on the grill. LOL
They have stated that this is the 4th largest disaster. I can certainly see why from what is laying around out there.
Cell phones are still messed up with msgs getting delayed by hours and calls not going through. Doesn't matter which carrier you use.
Well, I'm going back in for another day of "urban camping".
Wished I would've stayed in Colorado or Omaha another week.
Stay safe to everyone in the effected areas!
My Maytag survived! haha

Blessings to all;
Carol
 
Re: cell phone service, it's my recollection that after a moderate earthquake here a while back, cell phone service was impacted. The advice was to text, as that's less data to carry for the network than a voice transmission. However, considering how much damage there has been, it could be that even texting is going to be slow.
 
Caro, I'm thrilled everything is relatively safe at your house. Briefly heard from Allen, they're ok. The generator they were gonna use isn't working. I have cousins who live in Friendswood. It may have been hurricane Alicia in 1983 or Allison in 2001 (but I'm pretty sure it was all the way back in the 1980s), their house flooded for the first time in all the years they'd lived there. It left an emotional scar on my cousin so much so that every time a hard steady rain came, it sent her over the edge. This may just completely do her in. 112,000 got power restored yesterday after the storm left. The areas where there is severe flooding, it will be weeks before power is restored. A friend of mine in New Mexico told me yesterday afternoon he started hearing reports of relatives' houses being destroyed and some friends and family were injured, but nothing serious.
 
I'm not trying to minimize the problems caused by hurricanes, but I'll take a good old-fashioned WI snowstorm to what you guys & gals go through when it's this time of the year.
 
I agree....

At one time my roommate, and another friend, and myself were considering moving to New Orleans this was before Katrina. I am so glad we didn't. I would rather stay here in the Midwest and deal with the winters, and rare tornado then have to deal with multiple hurricanes. My cousin and his boyfriend live in Houston and I haven't heard anything from him yet. I've tried calling his cell phone, but it goes directly to voice mail.

James
 
I still have no water but my phone never went out and my electric was out only from 9pm to 6am.I have plenty of bottled water and a tub full of tap water(used to flush solid waste),food and first aid stuffs.My neighbor(she's a true dumb blonde)begged me to go with her to get gas for her car.I went and we waited in line at a H.E.B.grocery store for forty minutes.The entire time there I was explaining to her how there were so many places that still had no power and we were lucky to get ours back so soon.I also said it was unbelievable how many places like McDonalds,Kenucky Fried Chicken,Burger King,and other fast food/drive ins were able to handle their crowds of customers and that just this afternoon, before returning home from church,Ievery one of the four fast food places I past were packed.One had a block and a half long line.After we got her gas,SHE WANED TO GO TO A MEXICAN FAST FOOD RESTARAUNT!!!I TOLD HER THEY HAD NO DRIVE THROUGH SAND SHE INSISTED ON GOING!HAD WE WAITED,IT WOULD HAVE BEEN 1.5 HOUR WAIT IN LINE!!!She is so stupid!As we were leaving to come home,she turned the wrong way into oncoming traffic!
 
About to get a little visitor

here in NE Ohio.

Been windy and dark all afternoon, and there have been two power spikes in the last 10 minutes.

I have flashlights and batteries, a charged cell phone, bottled drinking water, food for Boris T. Catt.......

And I am going to go to my Sunday evening discussion group.

I am hoping that everything gets back to normal, or close, soon, everywhere!

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Hasn't been to bad here.

It's done nothing but rain here for the past three days. The sun tried to come out a couple times today, but didn't quite make it.

"I am hoping that everything gets back to normal, or close, soon, everywhere!" I agree with you Lawrence 100%.

James
 
Hi Bob
I spoke with Venus this morning. Landline is reliable. Sun finally coming out, its not too bad here. Glad you're fine and hopefully Glenn too. I'm kinda tired. I am going back and forth watching over 2 households. Mine & the Sagemont house. Checking on a few friends who are back at H camp too.
Friendswood took a beating hard with trees/wooden fences.
The available gas here have lines of 100 cars.
Curfews are strickly in effect. I think with so many ppl staying, they drove their cars around afterwards instead of staying put,now they are in the long lines with folks coming back. When in Pasadena today saw many return home, survey and leave. Reliant had a couple of trucks out too.
Cops really show up out in force near dusk.
Relatively smoother than the trauma of Rita. But if folks to come home, are planning to come & go...really they shouldn't! Else you will wait hours in line for gas back!
Some groceries open for certain hours. We have all we need here...I feel so blessed right now, compare to what others are going through. This is another one for the history books.
I can finally get back online wirelessly to see news/emails/updated notices.
Take care,
C

And I too would rather endure the snow.
*Colorado*
 
I finally got to talk with my dad this evening. He found an old non cordless phone in the closet. He still has no electricity. He lives in a sr. citizens apartment complex, the type below assisted living. They have been bringing him 3 meals a day of fruit, sandwitches, milk. He's on the 3rd floor and has both hsi doors open. But getting down the stairs with his walkerr would be just too much. Well, Ike took a more north easterly track. I only got 0.02 of an inch yesterday. My sister in Dallas got 1/2 an inch.
 
A near miss

Wharton County is outlined in red. Matagorda Bay is the red X. Early tracks had Ike aiming for Corpus, then Matagorda Bay, and finally Galveston.

Matagorda County (to the south) had a mandatory evac. A friend and his mother who live near where the upper-right arm of the X points stayed with me Fri night.

We had some wind, very little rain. The cable wire to my house came loose from the pole but didn't break. No power outage at my house, although there was one up the road for a short while. Towns toward the east side of the county did have some power failures.

The big convenience store at the intersection (you guys & gals who have been here know which one) ran out of gas and closed Fri afternoon, which was an unsettling sight being as it's 24/7 and I've never seen it closed. They were closed again Sun night, not sure why. A large caravan of ambulances camped-out at the Civic Center on Wed, which I'm sure they all headed off to Houston/Galveston by Sat morn, if not right away Fri night.

My sister near Jersey Village (northwest Houston) had a neighbor's tree fall on the garage but apparently not through it, and a couple panels of the patio roof flapping, but no serious damage far as I've heard. Power was out but back by Sunday afternoon.

Awaiting the next one ... and keeping thoughts of our neighbors toward the east.

9-15-2008-02-25-30--DADoES.jpg
 
Hey Glenn,

I am right under the "OU" about 1/8-1/4 inch. ;-)
Thank god for cooler tempz. today.

Keyboard on laptop iz mezzed up. Can't uze one ro diagionally....bizarre.

Glenn, Bob, vve need another T>< vvazhin! I've got many Bob loadz for offer....LOL.

Ha - get thiz: I zent a mg. to one of my covvorkerz lazt night, and zhe juzt got it...11 hourz later...FEH!

Glenn, I heard there vvaz another ztorm???? Pleaze tell me it ain't zo.

I'm going to give V a call later.

Zorry for the German typing...LOL
 
Were you building the Ark?

We survived a little wetter but living.
I had a little water in my basement, but my brother's house really got it. His back yard was swamped, and was starting to come in the house when we found a pump to rent. He had a pump going for 16 hours pumping 7,500 gallons an hour. Now we just have to get the carpets dry in the basement. Hopefully this is over for this year.

I just can't imagine those poor people that live by the shore. We are thousand's of miles inland and got heavy rains. Kansas floods when the dog goes pee, so about 25% of Wichita was serious Friday. They filled in the wetlands west of town to build a new Lowe's. Thus the water had no where to go so Maize road looked like a river until Sunday. Someone needs to rethink the water control I'm guessing.
 
Everything ok

in my neck of the woods. Very little rain. Winds are over....according to a friend a mile east (with a full home weather setup), we had straightline winds gust up to 50 miles per hour.

Again, I hope and pray that things get back to as normal as possible soon.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I've heard from Whirlcool. They won't have power for 10 days. The cooler temps have helped. He and Karen are like camping out in the house.
 
I’m glad to hear that everyone is okay (Carol, Glenn, Chuck, Allen, Bob, Venus! In Austin we only got a little wind (18 MPH) and not a drop of rain.

Carol your German is hilarious, that made my day. I hope your keyboard starts working again.

Take care ya’ll,

~Jeff
 
My sister advises there was damage in the neighborhood (roofs peeled, ceilings collapsed from water, etc.), she was just VERY lucky. They're rooming two couples (friends from work). Her partner's brother is in from points north, he runs a commercial roofing business.
 
Best wishes everyone.
So glad to see postings from our beloved Texas contingent.
Sending all of you light, love, peace and blessings.
Stay dry, stay cool, stay fed and hydrated.

Are the dogs that are behaving strangely in physical pain? Maybe the lowering of the atmospheric pressure hurts if the internal pressure in one's head doesn't go down as fast. (Think fast elevator or a plane trip).

Zinger of the day: FEH! to those hoarding charcoal. Don't tell THEM but charcoal can auto-combust when it's been wet.

We love you Texas!
....And since everything is bigger in Texas (subject to verificiation. LOL), we know your hearts are too!
 
Howdy All!

I am transmitting on my laptop from my neighbors across the street who have a whole house generator. We are still without power. The neighbors were going to sell us their old Honda generator, but when we put gas in it, it started pouring out of the carbeurator and it wouldn't start. The neighbor told us he'd get it fixed in "a couple of weeks" and then sell it to us. I told him that the deal is off, in a couple of weeks the power will be back on and it won't be needed anymore.

Thankfully it has been cool down here. Last night we had a low of 63. With windows open it was great sleeping weather.
The storm itself wasn't as bad as Alica was in 1983, at least from my prespective. It wasn't that noisy. But I think we had a tornado near us as there is one of those corragated aluminum livestock shed in the middle of the road about a block away. Normally, there aren't any in that area. So it must have dropped down from somewhere.

I went out this morning and took some photos of the damage. Lots of trees on houses, split trees, trees becoming unrooted, and lots and lots of fences falling down. I'll post these photos later.

Today we are going to clean out the refrigerator, it's starting to stink from the food inside. We saved quite a bit of it in a cooler chest and we can drive about 8 miles to get some ice to keep things cool. Since our subdivision has it's own well, we never ran out of water. So we'll empty out the fridge and wash the inside down today.

We are actually pretty comfortable. We have a Char-broil outside grill with a side burner. So for morning coffee I can heat up some water and pour it directly on the coffee in the Cuisinart coffemaker and have nice fresh coffee. Since the grill even had a thermometer on it we can even bake on it. Last night we had some barbarque ribs, very good. Our food supply is quite good. We can last at least another 6 days. But lots of people in our area are running out and there aren't any stores open in our immediate area.

During the storm all but one of the dogs took it in stride. But Gracie, our foster German Shepard/Golden Retriever, went under the coffee table and wouldn't come out. When I reached in there to pull her out she snapped at me along with a very threatening growl. The barometeric pressure was at its lowest at that time. Then our new Black Lab went under there to try to play with her and she snapped at him too. On Sunday she finally came out from under the table very cautiously. On Monday she was back to her old happy self.

Communications has been difficult with cell phones as quite a few cell phone towers are down. Lots of dropped calls and "Call Failed" messages when you try to call out. The land line came online last night, but we have a cordless phone which won't work without power.

As far as our house goes the only damage was to the fence between the neighbors house. And it's his fence. I reinforced it with deck screws and the fence itself actually held together. It snapped at the 4x4's at ground level. But the idiot neighbor on the other side who put up his fence using pickets that are about as thick as cardboard and also used a staple gun to attatch them is going around the neighborhood picking up what's left of his fence.

Lots of people are doing stupid things. They are running generators inside their homes, calling 911 to report that they don't have power or that their roof is leaking. One of our neighbors is a constable and he said that instead of helping people he is getting a lot of domestic disturbance calls. Usually it's a group of people who get together, and get drunk because there is nothing else to do, then somebody says something that someone else doesn't like and then a fight erupts. One case was a family that got together and the husband insulted his wife and she broke a beer bottle over his head and then her brother in law beat the crap out of her. Or people texting on their cell phones while driving and running off the road into trees and telephone poles. Lots and lots of DWI arrests.
Another case was of some neighbors who got pissed off because on one side of the street there was power and the other side didn't have power. So two neighbors from the opposite side of the street got into a gunfight over this. Of course they were drunk. Miraculously nobody got hurt except for bullet holes in their garage doors. And those two are now in jail.

The constables office in this area are urging liquor stores to remain closed until the power comes back on because of this.
There are big piles of storm debris in front of people homes, we don't know when it will be picked up.

So that's our report for now. I'll check back later today.

Allen
 
I have to laff at vvhilcoolz pozt

yup....folkz are juzt az bad on your zide az they are here.

i've got a ton of ztoriez to tell too...but zave it for a vvazhin...if that ever happenz.

got picz too....today a lady cut in front of me in my gaz line and I vvent into a gutter of a muddy curb. thank gozh it vvaz my little blue truck and not the nevv one. i had to be vvinched out.

ppl are ztupid here. i zhouldn't be amazed, but they do ztill amaze me. perzonally, i vvould like to do zomething elze to all theze idiotz....one of my neighborz for one. *left EVERYTHING in hiz yard to fly around, and guyz, I am talking a ton of zhit!* dumb azz illegal mezzican.

ztill no elect. here. have generator, cellz and landlinez are overloaded ztill.

dovvtovvn iz clozed another day. i go back to vvork on thurzday. *yay*

zevvage iz backing up novv in zome areaz....god it'z nazty ztinky....

keep all of uz in your prayerz....they are vvorking hard to get uz back to zome type of normality....i'm juzt hoping vve don't take another hit thiz year....

it vvould make the current *bad* zituation dovvn here.....zo much vvorze.

i'm pooped. im going to enjoy my lazt day off tommorrovv.

Everyone ztay zafe.

*for thoze :challenged: - replace the z'z vvith the letter betvveen R and T.....LMAO

Good night!
C

pz: zorry 4 the rant....i needed too.......
 
Yippee! We have power!
The power started going on and off about an hour ago. Then about 15 minutes ago it stayed on! We are SOOOO happy! It was an interesting experience to say the least. We didn't have any power for 92 hours.
Today we threw out 4 bags of food from the refrigerator that couldn't be saved. Karen washed it out with vinegar and baking soda followed by two fresh water rinses. It looks like new again and doesn't smell.
Our local Wal-Mart still has pretty empty shelves while the Kroger has stocked up almost to normal capacity. But 63% of the area still doesn't have power.
Finally things can get back to normal.
We have a friend who has one of those huge houses on Broadway in Galveston. He went back to see it today. The first floor (about 12 feet above street level) had water/mud up to the tops of the kitchen countertops. The second floor master bedroom ceiling failed and rain came in. He and his wife worked for the past 15 years converting it from a boarding house back to its 1880 glory. They finished it this spring.
He said it will take a few years to restore it back due to all the water damage. The main problem is that there is no electric, water or sewer on the island so he can't even begin to clean out all the mud inside the house. Of course this will lead to mold. He even had somebody elses sofa in his living room. It knocked down the front door and made itself at home, upside down of course.
 
Here is a message I received via e-mail from 58limited...

I'm OK

I'm staying in Lumberton, 50 miles north of my house. Power came on here last night so I'm just getting on the internet.

My area suffered major damage, there was a big storm surge. The seawall behind my house protected Port Arthur, but Bridge City and Orange (both a few miles away) got 8-10 feet of water. Bolivar Peninsula, High Island, Crystal Beach, and most areas east of, and including, Galveston (Winnie, La Belle, Fannett) are devastated. The waves washed over the seawall in my back yard and I had 12 inches of water in my garage. An inch of water got into my kitchen, but did not get into the rest of the house. I also have minor roof damage.

I had several friends who helped me to get my cars moved north before the storm. The wind damage is not as bad as hurricane Rita in 2005, but there is much more devastation here because of the water: flooding, up to 20,000 dead cows (so I've heard), other dead animals, and a huge amount of debris washed up from the marshes - I have a wall of salt grass and driftwood in my back yard that is 5 feet high, 20 feet in depth, and it runs the full 115 foot length of my back yard. I almost stepped on a cotton mouth on Saturday (I returned for a look-see soon after the storm - winds were still 40mph) and I shot one the other day.

There was enough water to short out my home standby generator, so I had to buy a 5000 watt unit to run my fridges. My 1949 Coldspot in the garage bit the dust, so I bought a Whirlpool convertible upright. The Servel gas fridge doesn't want to cool - probably got water in the fire box. I'll take it apart and clean it later. About 8 people decided to stay in Sabine Pass (10 miles south of me on the coast). Sabine Pass got a worse storm surge than with hurricane rita. I haven't heard if they are ok. I talked with a drainage district worker and he said that the surge on the Port Arthur seawall was 13 feet - the wall averages 16.5 feet. This wall really saved our bacon, unfortunately Orange and Bridge Citty do not have seawalls.

I'll post a few pics when I get my power back and can use my own computer - I have a pic of the surge behind my house: the water is about 3 feet below the top of the wall, and I took the pic at 1 pm Saturday after Ike had passed.

Please keep all of the devastated areas in your thoughts and prayers. Most of us in Port Arthur are ok, but so many others on the coast have lost everything.

David
 
David I am so greatly relieved. Have been worrie about you.

I know I shouldn't complain, and I spoze this isn't a really complaining comment, but I went to HEB today, since last Sunday. There was almost no milk at all. There were signs posted explaining the loss of mil and need to resupply the 67 HEB stores to the south of us as well as the loss of a milk processing plant due to the storm.
 
I learned a lesson about Center Point Energy through this whole ordeal: they really DO listen to the "squeaky wheel". I received several emails from different neighbors last sunday that power have had been restored in my area except for 57 houses, and that my house was one of them. They threw the breaker and the line fuse instantly tripped. Then they were ready to walk away from a community that was 57 houses short of being completely restored by an extremely simple repair that only involved one power cable which relayed a section of one grid to the next. They informed us to be prepared to wait up to 2 weeks. Well, all 57 of us said "heck no". The rest of that email message indicated that Center Point Energy's "unofficial policy" is to gain a concensus (so to speak) by keeping track of how many outage reports are localized and coming from multiple residents in a particular area. When some of the people start getting power, everyone talks and the pressure builds on Center Point. They're more sensitive than ever about community relations issues, and they should be. The whole "deregulation" phenomenon wasn't too many years ago. Needless to say, we all called Center Point on a daily basis. I even had several neighbors calling me to make sure that I had called. As it turns out, every time we all called, our collective outage reports got our community bumped up on the list. For all of you out there in Texas who are affected by this, JUST KEEP CALLING CENTER POINT ENERGY! Don't be willing to just "bend over" and wait two weeks or more, or they make sure that you do. They have over 7000 additional personnel from other service areas and out of state. These people are are earning Overtime/Doubletime/Disaster Service Wages or whatever their union contracts has outlined for them in writing. They're getting rich, they're getting fat, and they're not in too big of a hurry because they want it to last. My parents live in New Orleans and we saw this blatantly after Katrina. Seriously, I can't tell all of you enough: those who are affected by this, keep calling your your utility provider once a day. Don't let them turn you away.
 
Deregulation started out as a good thing.....

Then a few years ago, it all started going to hell.

If you went out of contract with your provider, they were charging you the max (mine was 26 cents KWH/ i.e: 700 kwh cost me $190 in electric) Outrageous!

I bitched and raised all sorts of hell with Cirro Energy and they adjusted it.

Reliant used to be the highest. Now they are in line with other companies. Alot of them have already gone under.

We will all be paying for this deregulation: (Post IKE)
The reason: Under deregulation, ratepayers are responsible for the expense of maintaining and expanding the power grid in Texas.

We got power back on at the house on Friday afternoon. I do not have power back at my house. And I already went ahead and paid a $150. bill for service I haven't even used!
I cut all elect. (except refrigerator during 2 wk vacation, was home 4 days and then Ike)

There had better be a BIG ass adjustment next month, or they will suffer the wrath of Hurricane Carol.

Rant over.
 

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