Thank you, there's some minor damage to the house, major to all the trees. I can see why they're saying 3-4 weeks + before they can let people back in the city - *every* block of *every* street has power lines down, trees ripped up and dropped everywhere, some homes have trees through them, etc.
There's convoys of huge tree service trucks going out every day to begin clearing streets so that EMS can get through if needed, huge tractors, back hoes and bulldozers are pushing them to the side for now. They're starting in the cities south of here to remove the trees, trash, etc so that the power people can get in to work on the electricity lines. Then they'll work northward towards us. It'll easily be a month before we have power back to everyone. School has been canceled during that time, plus the time it takes to put them back right once they get clearance to start. All businesses except for a couple gas stations and a couple stores running off generators are shut down. Crazy what one hurricane can do to hundreds of square miles - and we didn't even get the flooding like they did south of us and over into Louisiana.
I'm at my parents, working during the day at my dad's business to cleanup and repair (the roof was blown off) during the day (100+ degree heat now and no electricity). In the evenings I'm working on my notebook pc to get forms and orientation manuals typed up for the new hospice we were supposed to start this week. Everything is on hold. We're running the house off a large generator my dad has, so at least the nights are bearable. Got to boil water to make sure it's clean for the foreseeable future - sometimes it just stops while they are working on it somewhere.
My brother is in the fire department - he's working everyday all day (sleeps at headquarters) until further notice - he works as a fireman and also goes door to door making sure people are ok and asking them to leave the city and go to shelters if possible. The city picks anyone who wants to go up and sends them to the staging shelter, then to san antonio to a shelter at Kelly AFB with shelter, food and water until the city is opened back up. Yesterday he spen most of the afternoon removing the steaks, chicken, and fish (a couple tons worth) from Cheddars (a local restaurant) and bringing it to the local shelters, at least what could be saved.
Talk soon, headed to
www.fema.gov to fill out disaster relief forms.
