We NO LIKE IKE

River Oaks ( I realize just the two words does not strike much pity from most) but my family took it very hard. From what I have been told from ROPO is that my street and San Felipe south of Willowick and Tall Timbers took it the hardest. The River Oaks CC lost 185 trees and Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend (just West of us lost 75 percent of their Botanical gardens and oaks) Our home is right on the banks of the Buffalo Bayou and the swelling has been ugly as you can see from my last post.

Keep in mind, my flagpole is 40 feet high and it came to the bottom of the Aggie flag. The water came within three feet of our wine cellar on the first floor. This is realistically within 36 feet of the flood plane. The good news is the obnoxious dollhouse we had built for our daughter (that has wireless, a/c and running water) survived without a hiccup! This is probably good since FEMA does not accept requests in crayon.

Friday started like this.... First we pondered fleeing to Laredo for margaritas at La Posada - alas, we decided to hang tough. John, my precious Aggie engineer wanted my 74 year old Momma, 2 yo daughter and me to all sleep on the floor in the master study "hunkered down" (a phrase I have come to loathe) with no windows. I listened intently to his reasoning and assured him he had "been watching way too many after school specials and oilfield safety videos" then I naturally scoffed at his suggestion. I arrogantly protested that the storm was "a category two and we probably would not get squat but some mild rain and at most a few branches" With all my attitude , I assured him I was raised on a shipyard, so naturally that made me almost a meteorologist.

Fast forward to 5:30 AM the next morning, while I was sleeping in the master bedroom that is all floor to ceiling glass overlooking the magical banks of the bayou we did receive (what I would consider peaceful) thunderstorms and that was it. I assumed it passed through and we thought it was over. ROPO did a drive through at 5:45 AM and it was all clear (or we thought) from the Captain's wave -- by 6:15 AM it literally sounded like MoPac was reverted to our backyard heading towards our bedroom. It was "freight liner loud" (as I have heard tornado's described). The four of us dove for cover and about twenty minutes later we came up for air. Four homes out of maybe twenty on our street took a large oak to the surface. Two homes including our immediate neighbor was totaled and is considered a complete loss. My neighbor, two down, totally lost their home from the four large oaks that pummeled the outside.

We are a little more than an acre and have a commercial size Rainbow play system. The tornado picked this equipment up (which had to be a half-ton) and lifted the entire piece across through to our neighbors backyard and never touched the 7-8 feet fence. None of the equipment was broken, it is just relocated to our neighbors yard. I am sure they would think this were cool if they were not 110 years old or they at least had small children.

They are sending a tech out to rebuild it in OUR backyard. You should have heard the tone in the owners voice at the corporate office of the Rainbow system, when I explained the play area (initially bolted and held with concrete) moved two yards over and never touch a fence and is still in one piece.

He said "You are totally screwing with me lady?"

I laughed and said "Yeah mister, it took me a half a gallon of Crown Royal and three hours to think this up. I have nothing better to do."

My friend called and wanted to know what type of stuff actually floated in our neighborhood in Buffalo Bayou.  I said "Well, we do not get debris such as hypodermic needles.  Since we are upstream, we mostly get Chardonnay bottles and Dommie P magnums."

Alas, I was told today by our landscapers that of all their yards in River Oaks (including the Bayou Bend Gardens) "Casa Chaos" has some of the worst damage they had encountered.  

The morning the storm barreled through, it took John 8 hours to cut us out of our house and the neighbors out of the street with his chainsaw!  Our neighbors were cheering him on as he cut them vehicle access.  He was really wearing his Superman cape! 

An hour after the storm and Sinclair strapped to me we climbed over the monster oaks and took refuge six houses down at our neighbors, the Cullens.  They have a built in generator that immediately kicks in when their electricity goes out.  They were out of town, but we had at least power to 25% of their home. Enough to keep their perishables cool and the a/c running! 

So far, our running total, we have salvaged a 30 lb. snapping turtle, 4 huge snakes, 6 dead fish in the pool, two live trout and a small gator.  This would be basically everyone that did not make the cut at the River Oaks CC.

Which in turn made me think of my friend Alex Knight and my idea about the "Ike" bag.  I want her to take my gator hide (Buffalo Bayou swamp gator green) and turn it into my prize accessory for the season.  I figure by the time the UT-Aggie football game at Thanksgiving, I will be sporting my hurricane "Ike" Buffalo Bayou gator.  Alex will have to make a little pocket for essentials like flashlight, USB card and Valium!   I am confidant it will be all the rage!

Now as far as power goes - we have none (like the other 6 million that lost theirs).  The first night of the storm we camped downtown at Daniel and Veronica's loft (they briefly lost electricity).  My wonderful resourceful hubby called his Louisiana office and got us an 18 wheeler size oilfield platform Generator that can keep 10000 square feet running for weeks without refuel.   Alas, you better love to look at (bright) yellow and green - its sprayed with Welch Generator on the side -- this thing makes my SUV look petite.  Our MacDaddy primary colored source of power is the envy of the hood!

Fortunately two other semis brought hundreds of small portable generators for all the company employees.  So far, we lost just one day in our home -- but we are going on day 12 without real power.  I just got a wireless (3G) USB card from the office and can I tell you that I am beyond thrilled.  I felt like Robert Downey looking for a NA meeting!!! I was seriously getting Internet withdraws.  

I was thinking about when I was a little girl growing up on a shipyard.  My Dad was in a variety of businesses.  One was commercial ice and the other being in the generator business.  Ice and Ingersoll-Rand does not seem that glam when you are a kid...but BOY did we take those luxuries for granted.

I got teary-eyed yesterday and John assured me "this too shall pass" and he said "I know this generator is big and unsightly but we are able to run everything at full capacity and the Mayor, President Bush and James Baker do not even have power"

I started laughing and said "Oh honey, I am from Freeport, Texas - if that thing were on blocks in the front yard - we would be certified rock star royalty!"