last Tuesday. Or maybe it was the Tuesday before that? Whichever, that Tuesday my biggest concern was a broken garage door and finding a cereal box big enough to put my head in for the next eclipse. You know what? Things went downhill fast. At that point there was a disturbance in the gulf. This disturbance that was probably going to bring rain to the southern part of Texas and northern Mexico went ahead and turned into a tropical depression, then on to Tropical Storm Harvey and also decided to turn a little more northward. The forecasters let us all know it would hit south of Corpus Christi and by then it would be a category 1 hurricane. Our issue was the projected route. After it hit Corpus, he was going to make a loopty-doo and come towards us.
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| This is after it hit but still shows the loop projection. We're the Corgi. |
Thursday came and as we stocked up on things, Harvey decided to strengthen more. Before we knew it, Harvey was a category 3 hurricane and Corpus Christi was going to get hit hard.
I went down to the hardware store and bought sandbags and sand because I was so afraid the back porch would flood.
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| This put me at ease. |
Friday we all watched as the rain started and sometime that night, Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane at Rockport. From that point to right now, I couldn't tell you which day was which or what the date was. I do know those first few days were bad. We were on the dirty side of the storm and boy, was it dirty. I guess we were basically under a tornado warning for a couple of days. While we didn't sleep very well in the beginning, we slept a lot. I
realized during Harvey that hunkering down translates to eating and
sleeping on rotation. We picked up as many meals as we could to save
our food supply. I think Saturday was the day the rain really hit. We watched as it decided not to drain and slowly creep up our yard. That night, before we went to bed, the water was at our front porch. There was nothing we could do but sit and wait and listen as more rain fell and filled our yard. It was pretty overwhelming for me. I did a lot of pacing and I'd go from being frustrated to stress crying. It wasn't fun. I laid in bed and decided I'd go start moving things to higher ground but made a stop in the bathroom first. The toilet wouldn't flush. I knew we had a problem. My pace/panic mode went from 3 to about 9. We got some things moved and Cosme went outside to pull his car up (thank goodness he didn't give me details until the water drained the next day). It was at this point the rain slacked off and I was able to sleep for a couple of hours. I knew as long as it wasn't raining, it wasn't getting worse.
I got out of bed at 7:30 the next morning and took my first pictures of the water level. This was our situation.
By 2:30 we had a sidewalk again. All we needed was for the rain to stop.
This is the water/debris line from the driveway. Now imagine the water along with the slope.
That's why Cosme kept his mouth shut the night before.
As soon as I woke up and saw that the water had gone down, that made it better. I know we didn't have it near as bad as some people but it was a stressful situation, especially when all you hear are reports of more rain and it's all happening in the middle of the night so you can't see anything and your imagination goes wild.
Ever since then, the whole area has been in a state of unrest. We've got houses all over the place flooded. I've offered friends who are flooded out and living in hotels use of our washer, dryer and kitchen. Yesterday was Labor Day so today is the first "normal" day for us. Cosme is back at work, although his route is still flooded so he's finding an alternate.
Here's the thing though. I don't like to get sappy and emotional. Yes, I'm known to angry cry but that's different. Angry cries usually accompany me hitting or throwing things. Wait. I know how that sounds and it's not a tantrum. It's a release. A release of negative energy, that sounds better. Whatever... Anyway, we were at church on Sunday and this couple sat in front of us. I was doing fine and minding my own business until I realized they were from the evacuee shelter a couple of blocks down. Then I saw her get emotional. Then I saw her husband get emotional. Then I got emotional. I had tears coming out of my eyes in public and I'm sure people saw me. I was embarrassed. Well, I was totally embarrassed until I heard sniffles coming from somewhere behind me and then I was only a little embarrassed. Then I wondered if somebody was sniffling because they saw me getting teary. Then my embarrassment level went up a smidgen more. I hope I managed to hide my red nose and teary eyes from enough people because I'm not
that person. By the end of it, I had exchanged phone numbers with the lady and ended up taking them a Walmart gift card with some clothes from my closet. Their dog had puppies two hours before they evacuated. They got out with two bags, their dog and a tub with the eight puppies. Everything else was left, including their two flooded cars. So yeah, I'm trying to avoid showing up at the church until anyone who might've seen my brief display of emotion has had enough time to forget about it. I might go in a couple of days to help out. Since our church is a couple of blocks down from the old junior high (the makeshift shelter), our main hall is set up as a donation center for anyone needing clothing, food, toiletries, dog food, toys or anything else that might have been dropped off.
So now I'm going to find out what the date is and start on chores like I would have two weeks ago. Maybe we can avoid Hurricane Irma, which wasted no time forming, and things can stay on the track to normal.
