... in response to Houston , posted by Keith NC on Sep 21, 2005Big surprise. I went into work Tuesday and the bosses said go home and call in on Monday. I'm like,"OK". Early vacation, go home and get some sleep. But Honey was all worried and nervous and the media was constantly over stating the enevitable. I gave in and we decided to go to my younger brothers summer home north of Lake Livingston in Onalaska, Texas. He had called a few hours ealier and said he was heading there.
Man was it nice. Fishing, swimming, relaxing on the waterfront and getting paid!
Being the stupid idiot I assumed we were just fine there and basically prepared for little like we had at home. 2:15 Friday morning I woke up to a loud crash, Honey said turn on the TV and see what the weather was. I repled "no electricity". Every few minutes a repeat of that sound and similar ones occurred. When morning arrived my brothers place was a mess with broken down trees and limbs. NO water, NO electricity. One tree fell on his wifes SUV and another blocked his truck from getting out of the driveway.
My brother and I went through our things anbd came up with a 12 VDC to 110 VAC converter and hooked it to his truck and was able to wacth news on the TV. Fox news was being broadcast on nearly every channel. Seems that even though we went 90 miles inland and north we had gone right in the of path of the storms aftermath. Lake Livingston recieved an exorbatant amount of rain and the dam was in danger of breaking. We were being told to evacuate. My sister-in-laws home was at the end of the dam and we weren't allowed in to the community to lcear out what we could. Not that anything would happen but just incase the DAM BROKE!!!?
I guess its beeter to just evacuate, huh!. Hmmmm, didn't I just do that? Well, OK. We climbed into the old Freestar and headed back to Hwy 59. No No No. We had to turn around and go back the other way to Hwy 45 (about 45 miles). People had drank up all the gas and the gas stations were empty. Luckily my Freestar gets great gas mileage. I think on the way to Onalaska we traveled at a wopping 4.5 miles per hr and topped it coming back home at 6 miles per hr.
I checked my brothers and mothers home first. No problems there. My home the common fence between my neighbor and I blew down and we lost tree shingles but that was about it. No sure how to get that fixed. Oh well I guss the big raise is spent for a few months.
We're all fine. No major problems. Got to see some rare sights. Thanks for your well wishes.
The Bear Family.
