August 30 – “Waving goodbye”

Late night news coverage provided some interesting moments.  Like this sobering statement: “Not a single spot in Harris County has had less than 28 inches of rain.”  Wow. 

Channel 11 lost their feed for a few hours.  Why?  They had a sudden rush of ten feet of water into their building.  Perhaps that affected the reporting.  How about the story about the crew trying to rescue 2 teenage boys desperately clinging to a tree after a boat flipped over.  The news reporter had the solution: “Just tie a rope around your waist, tie the other end to your truck, and start swimming.”  Wow.  I’m pretty sure the FD and PD hadn’t thought of that one yet.  Thanks, dude.

We woke up yesterday morning to pretty intense bands of rain and wind again.  Except for one detail. The wind was clearly coming out of the north instead of the southeast.  That was good news.  It indicated that the eye of the storm was moving to the east of Galveston and we were getting winds from the north side of the storm, a little better situation than being on the east, or dirty side.  I checked the location, and the storm was still in the Gulf, intensifying.  Projected landfall, however, now put it further east.  Good for us, bad for Louisiana.  The wind and rain stayed pretty strong all morning and into the afternoon as the storm hovered off the coast. 

Did a lot of networking while sheltering in place.  Friends and family were calling, texting and messaging from all over the U.S.  Some groups were wanting to come help immediately.  Others were content to wait until the event was actually over.  We appreciate both sentiments.  All of our Seaside folks were accounted for and doing well.  Dickinson stayed under water, so we kept our house guests.  Sam was staying put at her house in League City, but she was fine.  We heard from the Stones in Santa Fe.  All was well on the farm. 

People began posting images and videos of their drives around town on the Island.  The flooding got bad overnight as the storm moved enough to start pushing water from the bay onto the island.  The Strand was flooded, as were many of the East End streets.  Much of the West End was flooded, too, but they are used to it out there.  Old hat hurricane party for them. 

I think we might be getting stir crazy, though.  We actually wound up looking at photos of Chris and me from the time we started dating to now.  The girls were stunned by my rugged good looks, and were impressed with Chris’ beauty as well.  Our preservation through the ages gave them something to look forward to, I suppose.

Speaking of stir crazy, Kelly and Heather took off for a walk during one of the lulls in the storm.  They ran back home.  They got wet.  Chris and I, on the other hand, got in the truck for our storm trek.  We drove around the neighborhood and up to see the Gulf.  Lots of flooding in areas nearby.  Jones Park is now Jones Lake … again.  The Ross parking lot is a lake as well.  The airport baseball fields are retention ponds.  The Gulf is being pushed way back by the north winds, so it looks like very low tide.  As we turned to come back to the house, a guy was desperately trying to cover a broken window in his vehicle.  I stopped to give him a hand.  We got the plastic tied down to a certain extent.  Good enough for him.  Why?  Let me see if I can effectively duplicate this … “Cuz this is already gunna be one of my FEM’urs.”  Ah, Ike survivors.  Remember all of our FEM’urs?  Oh, how we loved FEMA …

And finally, here’s a post I saw several times on Facebook: “See what happens when you name a hurricane after a man.  He won’t ask directions, wanders around lost, leaves a mess, and doesn’t clean up after himself.”  Well, if ol’ Harv won’t do the cleaning up, I suppose it’s up to us.  Let the clean-up begin …

Perhaps now, as people begin trickling back to see their homes for the first time after the storm, this is even more appropriate: 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Father, give us all stamina in the next few days.  Touch hearts in unaffected areas to send help.  These folks are gonna need a lot of money and supplies in the next few weeks and months.  Amen.