September 2005 Archives

The mad rush is on to get as much cleaned up as possible before I leave for Trinidad.

The darn grass just keeps growing.

Katie's brothers house in Bush about 20 miles north of me. A lot of the damage in that area appeared to be from tornados.

I'll try and put some "after" shots up today.

I spent a lot of time with a phone in one hand, a remote in the other and a stunned expression on my face.

Lars and Rocko Jeffries watching hurricane coverage.

Many thanks to Pat and Shireen for their hospitality and gourmet meals during Hurricane Katrina. I promise I'll bring the gas cans back, Pat.

We got this side cleared up today.

Katie's sister and her family rode out the storm in their home.

Amy insisted that we leave this inverted tree top for a while.

This was taken driving in to Tom Allen's house in Lacombe about 15 miles east of me.

These three pines are in a perfect line next to one of my live oaks. They took out a couple of big oak branches.

This view is behind the shop.

Their house had two big holes and four or five small holes in the roof.

A tree on the property next to me fell and took mine down.

My shop is surrounded by pines but this was the only one that wimped out.

Now were did I put that chainsaw?

I'm not sure anybody reads this anymore and that's my fault. I've been busier than a one armed paper hanger. For some reason this system won't let me upload pictures and I've used that as an excuse to not put out anything. Some of you might have heard we had a little inclement weather down here. I was in Trinidad working for BP and flew home on the 28th. Well I didn't actually make it home. The New Orleans airport closed as I landed in Houston but I had called Katie and told her to pack up the kids and meet me in Houston. We spent three days there and then spent a night in Lafayette. The next day Katie and I and my friend Pat Jefferies drove into Madisonville not knowing what to expect. We hit the lottery at our house. Nothing landed on the house, shop or vehicles. I was walking around telling everyone that my boat cover didn't even blow off. Then I found out my good friends Ben Begley and Martha Bateman had come by to check the house and wrestled the cover back on. Many thanks to them. Madisonville is about twenty miles to the west of the eye but the damage was still pretty extensive. We were fortunate to get power restored yesterday. A lot of people are going to be waiting weeks and in some cases months. At least the ones that still have homes. I heard on the news that this is the largest migration of people in our history. I'm still having a hard time getting my mind around that. Phone service is spotty at best. We get more calls in than we're able to get out. So feel free to call. Ive got to get back to my yardwork. I've hauled twenty pickup loads of debris to the burnpile and haven't even finished the front yard. But we still feel like we hit the lottery!