Hurricane

This was way after the storm when the water had receeded, but at one point there was a guy in a conoe paddling down our street.

We were so blessed to only go only 4 days without electricity in comparison to many people who still do not have power or who have lost their homes. Our water supply wasn't affected and our stove and water heater is gas powered, so we were fortunate to still be able to have hot water and cook in our kitchen (even if by flashlight). Before the storm, we did stock up on ice, bottled water, propane and charcoal for both grills. Chuck desperately tried to find a generator, but they were sold out all of the way to Dallas, Austin and San Antonio two days before the storm hit. The night of the storm we stayed up until 2:30am watching the progression. We finally went to sleep until Nicholas woke me up at 5am. The winds were really loud and flying debris kept hitting the house. We went downstairs to check the news again and the eye was really close to our area. The news people kept saying that if it sounded like there was a freight train overhead, then take cover, but it was so loud, I don't know if we would have been able to tell if there was a tornado or not. About 6:25am the power went out while Nicholas and I were downstairs watching the news. All of the flashlights were upstairs in our bathroom and if I had yelled out to Chuck, I don't think he would have heard me. I was contemplating how to get upstairs in the pitch black when I remembered my cell phone was in my purse close by. We used that as a light and got upstairs and woke up Chuck who then turned on some lantern flashlights. We went back to sleep and the rain continued for 8 more hours (raining a total of 14 hours straight). Chuck called Jack and he and Mel met us in Corsicana late Saturday night with 4 generators they had barely found in WF. We went to Walmart and bought an a/c window unit and gas cans that Chuck strapped to the top of the car and got home about 2:30am Sunday morning. Our neighbors on both sides purchased a generator and we were able to run our refrigerators, a small TV (although we didn't have cable), a lamp and fans. It was a great relief. But then came the anxiety of trying to find gas every day to fill the generators. All of the gas stations couldn't run without electricity and a lot of them had run out of gas before the storm. A generator our size usually runs 5 gallons of gas every 12 hours. Well, we made it through and Chuck even went back to work on Monday because all of downtown never lost power and the hotel was full of evacuees. Then came the anxiety of getting him to and from work with very few gas stations opening up and our neighbors still looking for gas to run our generators. It was crazy! On Tuesday, we heard on the radio that we should not expect to get power back for 4 weeks. Four weeks! Then Tuesday night all of a sudden the lights came on. We found out that only 15% of 400,000 Entergy customers got their power restored and we were part of them. Amazing! Our cell phones had not been working the entire time during all of this except for every once and awhile we could text, but it was very erratic. They came back on Wednesday and our cable/phone/internet connection was restored Wednesday night. Once again, I will say how very blessed we feel to have not had any damage to our house like you will see across the street from our house in the pictures below. We saw tons of tress lying on houses and cars in our neighborhood alone.

They brought in a huge crane to lift the tree off of their truck and house. The truck barely had a scratch. If I ever buy a truck, I think I will buy a Ford!