Cool and clear at the BOL for the moment anyway. Should be clear all day. I’m more interested in Houston today though.
Yesterday we did have some time in the morning without rain. I was able to do some more cleanup in the dockhouse, and spray a cleaner/disinfectant/mold killer on most of the affected walls. The rain started and I went up to lunch and didn’t get back to remove some furring strips from the last wall. I didn’t want to soak that with virucide and then have to touch it, so that has been left undone for now.
While I was watching all the afternoon rain come down (about 3 inches), Houston got HAMMERED. Lots of wind damage, rain, limbs down, power outages, etc. Some really dramatic damage like high tension power lines knocked over…
SO today is in flux. Wife and kids were due to come up today anyway, and school and work have been cancelled.. but there wasn’t any power at the house and no indication of when it might be back on. There were also a lot of limbs down, and cleanup that needs to happen. I’m best suited for that, so I might swap places with my wife and kids. They come up here and do what there is to do here, I go down there and do storm cleanup.
I’ll take a gennie and most of the fuel I have here. There are plenty of places in Houston with power to pump gas and fill LP tanks, but it’s probably better to just bring what I’ve got. This storm caught us off guard. I haven’t done my seasonal hurricane preps yet, like running the gennies, rotating out fuel, and filling the extra jugs…
That’s assuming power is still out. I might head home even if power is restored, just to do the cleanup. It might even make sense for us all to be in Houston this weekend anyway, although my wife was looking forward to being up here, and we’re having family over for Memorial Day so she feels the need to clean and do more “getting ready.”
In any case, this storm reinforces the idea that disasters don’t happen on a schedule and you need a base level of preparedness all the time. All the stuff I have is in place, it’s just not as convenient or well laid out as it is at other times. And I’ve put off some maintenance that I should have addressed right away. There’s always something that needs doing, and never enough time.
But hey, we’ve got food, water, shelter, power generation, medical backup, and the tools to recover.
Because I stacked them up when times were better. You can and should do the same…
nick