We’re basically waiting for whatever is coming. All the news media is correctly focused on the Galveston water surge. That’s the really big story. We may possibly see the city of Galveston and the communities surrounding it changed forever because of the storm surge. The bay and channel reaches clear into Houston and there are refineries and communities all along it. There’s a lot of water flowing into the bay with a whole lot more coming.
The big waves and the big potential of devastation IS the story right now and I have no argument with that. Still, the rest of us are waiting for 10 to 12 hours if big time wind and rain. That isn’t as photogenic as thundering surf, but that’s what is on our minds even as we marvel at the photos from Galveston and Surfside, both around 30 miles from us.
Here on the home front I went over to the church to check on things and found two of our guys cutting plywood and covering the most vulnerable doors and windows. I can’t say how much I appreciate their taking time from their own hurricane preparations to do that work. It wasn’t their “job” and no one asked them to – they just did it because of their love for the Lord and for this House of Worship. This pastor says, “God bless them!”
We’ve done the laundry and a few other things that we thought would be wise with the likelihood of being without power for awhile. My sister has room in her garage for Jackie’s vehicle so we put it there. Garage doors are notorious for failing in high wind so we put the vehicle in the garage, closed the door, and then put the vehicle in park and gently rolled it back against the door. The idea is to keep the door from moving back and forth in the wind, making it more “wall like.” That’s another of those “we’ll see how it works” deals.
The wind has picked up some, but nothing more than what we would see on a breezy day. We’re also seeing a few rain showers of the tropical variety with fine raindrops that will soak you in a few seconds. The rain peppers down for awhile and then stops for awhile only to start again. No doubt, this will be a memorable night.
One indication that our waiting is about over is that I no longer need to go to a hurricane focused web site to see a radar picture of the storm. Here’s a screen shot from our local Houston Chronicle weather page. I look a this page everyday to check on the weather forecast.