Hold On Tight

8/24/17:

Not Harvey, but his older brother

LESS THAN A MONTH AFTER RETURNING from Texas we are back in the Coastal Bend Country on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This time for a funeral…and just in time for Hurricane Harvey.

We landed at the Corpus Christi airport on Wednesday afternoon and the hurricane warnings went up on Thursday morning. Timing is everything, ain’t it?

This is my first hurricane. For my wife, the lovely and meteorologically experienced, Dawn, this is not her first rodeo. She whipped into action along with everyone else in the possible pathway of the storm.

A trip to the supermarket found a completely empty bread aisle. Hurricane or no hurricane people gotta have their toast. We managed to find one loaf of “Bare Bread” – Crustless Bread. It looks quite odd. Nobody else wanted it so we took it. Bottled water was limited to 5 gallons, but there was  no limit on Dr. Pepper.

Thursday morning:

We made a shopping list of things that might be vitally important in this situation ASAP: More water, candles, Spam, water, batteries, water, bread (crustless or otherwise) water, and anything else that can be consumed in the dark. Pie.

The storm has plotted a path directly at us. The windows in the house are being boarded up. The current forecast calls for 80 mph winds and enough rain to make me regret scrapping that ark I used to have in the garage. The rain is supposed to start in a few hours and the wind will be close behind.

Our original agenda had the funeral scheduled for Friday. That has been pushed back to an indeterminate date. We will stay as long as we can. Such is life. Such is weather.

It’s starting to rain.

Friday:

Everybody hold on!

The weather channel says that the storm will come ashore later today. It seems to be turning slightly to our north – slightly, like 30-50 miles. Not much. We are as well prepared as possible. The next thing to do is wait. I have been through big earthquakes, but just sitting and waiting for a hurricane to smack you is not fun.

We are in Sinton, Texas, about 30 miles inland from Corpus Christi and 42 feet above sea level. The last time Sinton was flooded was in 1970. We are hoping for better results this time. The 42 feet is higher than any of the Weather Channel hype is predicting, so it looks like the wind will be the big danger. The prediction for that is now at 85 – 120 mph. We shall see.

Because Dawn is a hurricane veteran she knows what to do. Right now she is making muffins. What a Pro!

7 PM: The hurricane is now ranked as a Category Four which means “Hold on!”- 115 to 145 mph.

Friday 9:19 PM

The power is out. We are in the dark. No more Weather Channel. We are on our own until further notice. We decided to sleep downstairs behind the boarded up windows. The noise is incredible. The wind and the rain are pounding the house. Sleep is not going to come easily tonight. Morning will tell us what has happened. Harvey is coming ashore – NOW.

To be continued on Monday. 

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