Saturday, September 24, 2005

The One with the Aftermath


Well, Rita finally made landfall. This week has felt like an eternity worrying about all my friends and family and waiting for this hurricane to get here. I do not envy people who live in Florida and go through this every year. I couldn't handle it. With Hurricane Katrina having been so recent and all of those horrific images stuck in our minds, this has been torture.

I have not been able get a hold of my friend Sunny to find out how her family is. When Rita was expected to hit around Galveston, they fled to the north east. I didn't realize until yesterday that they didn't go very far north. They ended up not too far inland from where Rita hit. My aunt and unlce have spoken to neighbors who stayed where they live near Beaumont, and their house is fine.

As for the weather in Nac, where my family evacuated to my mom's, things are ok. I first spoke to her around noon, and they had just experienced some high winds of up to 90 mph. Her voice was shaky and I could hear her fear, but she insisted they were fine. Yesterday, they made the decision to move from our house to the home of a coworker of my mother's. Our house is surrounded by lots of pine trees and, Elaine's is not. The high winds demolished the carport that they were all parked under, but only my cousin's truck was damaged. They watched as the carport crashed down sending a beam onto his truck, then the winds wrapped the tin roof around it. Another piece of the roof was sent careening onto the condo next door. You can imagine what hearing all this did to my nerves, but I thank God that they are all ok.

My mom had also spoken to a friend in our neighborhood, and our house is fine. However, there is alot of damage there as well. A pine tree fell on a house a few down from ours and another is blocking the road. No one in Nac has electricity, and they don't know when it will return. The area that my uncle lives in is not expected to have power again for several weeks.

I am just glad that my family is alive. Hopefully, I will hear from Sunny soon. My heart goes out to all who have been effected by this storm.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure it was scary, but I'm glad everyone seems okay with you! Here from Michele's tonight, but I'd be here anyway!

Unknown said...

Hello, here from Michele's tonight.

I remember reading your blog before about your hometown, Nac... I saw it on CNN earlier today. It reminded me of your blog. I am glad to hear all is well for your family.

carmilevy said...

I know that these are mere words on a screen, but please know that folks from far and wide are keeping you and yours in their prayers tonight.

mommy d said...

Thanks for visiting my site and your kind words! Very thankful that your family is fine and hopefully minimal damage to their city.

Thumper said...

I can't even imagine...I'm glad your family is all right!

Here via Michele's :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Michele sent me. Glad to hear a storm update. Glad the damage is fairly small.

Anonymous said...

My family is ok....but talk about killing my nerves over the last week. There was a lot of damage in Kirbyville where they were all huddled in a house together, but they escaped it. There were several trees that fell at the house they were in, but they fell away from the house. Talk about Luck! They arrived back home today, but unfortunately my sister doesn't know if she has a home to get back to. Vidor and the Beaumont area is closed off to evacuees. She is staying at my parent's friend's house in Kirbyville until she can get back into Vidor. Vidor was supposedly wiped out. There isn't any gas in the area for my sister to drive back south of Houston to stay with us and she only has a half of a tank. FEMA was supposed to deliver food and supplies to the area today. They drove over and waited for hours and FEMA never showed. It was more gas and time wasted. The power is completely out in Kirbyville and everything is closed. There is no telling when everything will open back up and gas brought to the area. Hopefully we will find out soon what is going to happen with her. Sorry I haven't been able to get ahold of you Lish, but my phone wasn't working that well in Boerne, and I just got home this morning and had to be at the hospital to work tonight. Buzz me at home if you get a chance since school is out til Wed. TTYL, Sun