Here are some of the pics that I had tried to post earlier. There are lots of trees down and lots of debris. Some parts near Galveston were almost totally washed away. We were very lucky. The power came back on last night.

The storm roared through early Saturday morning from about midnight until about 9am or so.  We lost power at about 6am Saturday morning.  Luckily, we have gas hot water heaters and a gas cooktop.  So we had hot showers and some hot food.  There was a huge pine tree that fell across the street out of our neighborhood.  But luckily, some well-prepared neighbors used a chain saw to cut the tree in half and move it out of the way.  I tried to go into work, but the area around the hospital was totally flooded. 

The first day was hot and humid.  But then a wonderful, cool front swept in and saved us!  Thank you Lord!  We’ve enjoyed wonderfully cool, dry weather for the past few days.  What a blessing!  So we threw open the windows and enjoyed the pleasant breezes. 

The first day after the storm, we learned that 99% of the customers of our power company were without power.  They said it could be October before power was restored to 100%.  Oh my gosh!  I didn’t last 2 nights without my BiPap!  So, the 3rd night, I decided to sleep at the hospital, as they were on generators.  But I didn’t have to as a coworker offered to let me come home with her.  She had a generator.  So, I got a good nights sleep and made a new friend.  The next night, we were graciously loaned a generator by one of Mark’s work colleagues who had their power restored.  By the next evening, our power returned!  Yeah!!  The line men for the power companies are rock stars around here!!

There still is a lot of work to do around here.  It was a huge storm and I think it was stronger than they predicted.  We live 90 miles from the coast and it looks like a war zone here!  But Houston is a strong community and we’ll rebuild and we’ll be even better!!

our poor little silver fir tree was blown over – one by the pool was blown over, too

note the downed tree in the center of the picture – compare to the before pic below in a previous post