More Progress

Since Sept 24. when one of the trees that fell landed across the front path to my house splitting two smaller trees and demolishing two arbors we have been unable to use the front path.
Today we finally cut free the last arbor and can now enter and exit the house the correct way again.

Funny thing is I started to go around automatically when I came back from the store today a little after we had finished.

Pictures of Ike

I have been meaning to put some pictures I took of my yard post Ike and this seems like as good a time as any.

This is the one that fell right on my front path.
As you can see it pretty much demolished the creape myrtle there and the one on the other side of the path you can't see. It also smashed the two arbors holding up the star jasmine.





This is the same tree at a different angle. the one that hit the house is inthe background





This is the one that hit the house over my bedroom and put a hole in the roof. Cost to remove $2,500, plus tax.





This one was a twofer on another part of the yard. I don't know if they both fell at the same time or if the one on the left fell into the one on the right and took it down.
All eight trees we think fell at the same time and in the same direction.
We are getting these two cut little by little but they were not as urgent as the one that hit the house and the prices will come down.

The sound of Ike 2

Last weekend I was talking about the sound of Ike being chainsaws.
Yesterday I went out and heard different sounds, hammers.

Hammers.

Things are getting better but I have still not heard from my insurance company.

Wal Mart Rocks

People have been very down on Wal Mart for a long time but let me tell you they can be very good to thier people.

Case in point my wife got a cash "gift' to help her with the cleanup from the storm last week.

Today they sent a team of six people over with chain saws who cut up and burned two more of the fallen trees. It took all day and they are doing similar things for people from each of their stores where they find someone very hard hit.

They did not make us whole but they didn't have to do anything and what they did do will go a long way to help us get back to normal.

little by little

Made some progress yesterday.
sawed , burned and then repeat.

Our front garden and the pathway to my front door are now free, YAY.

Pictures later today, between more burning.

The Sounds of Texas

We were out early today starting a fire to burn more of our beatiful oaks,

In the distance you could hear the sounds of the early morning in every direction, chainsaws everywhere.

Our own chainsaw guy arrived a little bit later.

Fema man comes by

A man from Fema came by after work Friday.
He was very professional.
Walked around the yard and looked at the roof and all the downed trees.
Went inside and measured where we pulled up the carpet.
Took our information including Insurance and said they would get back to us.
Pretty much like the Insurance guy did last Sunday.
Now we have to wait and see.
Latest quote on tree removal is $11,000,

No gas problems here

People in Nashville seem to be having gas problem according to Glenn

We had gas lines earlier in the week and a lot of stations were closed but we seem past that.
I filled up at the HEB station today with no wait and the wife did the same at the station outside of Walmart.

More Ike Updates

DR. MELISSA CLOUTHIER has been doing some posts about Ike.
she lives in the Woodlands.
I live abour 4 miles from the west side of the Woodlands so our area are very much alike.

Read abut it here and here.

A Little progress

We got the people here today to get the tree off the house finally. Wow do they charge a ton of emergency removal. There goes my deductable plus some.

Need to get the roof fixed still.

Been burning leaves and oak parts in the yard all morning.

Serves me right

Just when things were going well I lost phone service and internet again.
Sending this from the local Denny's which has wifi.

Got to love this country, get to work remotely, eat lunch and even smoke a cig. at the same time.

Last nights

I noticed that we all went to bed earlier when the power was off.

Today we hopefully get the tree off the house and I have to burn a lot of fallen oak .

The BW is very upset. Losing 8 old oaks is something wee can't fix in out lifetime even if we lived another 100 years.

Let there be light

We have power!!!!!!

Yay!!!!

Ike aftermath

Well we ended up getting pretty battered early Saturday morning. About 10 big old oaks are now laying on the ground. One punched a hole in my roof and another is laying on the power lines.
We are all ok and that is what counts even though this is going to screw up my budget for a long time to come.

There are worse things.

Power is still off but I got the generator working finally, just got DSL back, which is why I am able to send this.

Gaslines lines are awful, as soon as someplace has gas cars lines up and they all have gas cans to fill.

I got smart and filled up Friday and this morning I was able to find a place where I only had to wait 30 minutes to fill up.

The day after only Walmart was open and had power. Yesterday Denny's got power and opened up so I took the family out to dinner.

I will post some pictures in a week or so when things get back to normal.

Very interesting

Dr. Melissa who is about 9 or 10 miles from me sort of eastward is getting a lot of high winds.
It is starting to rain now here and the wind is picking up.

ho hum

Still nothing but we expect the rain to start shortly.

8 oclock and all is well

Nothing much ahppeneing yet though the wind is starting to pink up.
I cleaned out the yard of most of what couldn't be tied down and discovered that my garage door was broken.
Just one of those days.

In Ike's Path

Well we thought it was going to miss us but now it looks certain it is on its way.
Still sunny and 85 but already the wind is picking up.
My place closed early and so did the wife's.

Nothing much to do but wait it out now.