Water, water…

everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Do Not Flush

Parts of SE Texas received an extra overnight gift: up to nine inches of rain from a cold front. So highways, streets and bayous are flooded yet again. I just checked my email and the existing flash flood watch was just cancelled.

I believe our local mayor and emergency management leadership and staff (including police and fire) are doing a yeoman’s job out there. The Red Cross made it to Galveston in short order, but Galveston was under mandatory evacuation so no-one is supposed to be there! And no-one will be let back in for days, perhaps weeks.

We are still in elite company as part of 3% of households with power, so we can watch the regular briefings (the only way we can get ANY reliable information as to what is going on) but have no running water.

FEMA is supposed to be setting up “POD’s” for water, ice and MRE’s but are lagging, as usual. It took a couple of hours for me to learn that a POD is a Point of Distribution – they seem to think we all understand GovSpeak. It doesn’t seem as if they’ve learned anything in the three years since Katrina. Fearless Leader Chertoff flew in here to pat himself on the back, then left a flunky to tell the world that they can’t do anything because of “high winds.” The winds left us yesterday morning and they’ve had 28 hours to get basic supplies to the people.

Few stores are open. A few more, today, like our local Target, the only one we could get to without negotiating flood waters. None has water or ice. Only two local gas stations are open and have lines taking several hours. Folks from the suburbs are coming into town to fill up gas cans for their generators, which they need because they don’t have electricity. 97% of the area doesn’t have power, so gas stations, even if they have fuel, cannot pump gas up from their storage tanks.

Prize photograph is of our toilet, trying to get my better half to stop flushing every half hour! Every four flushes he has to go get water out of the pool and lug it to the 4th floor. He just went to help a friend of a friend remove a tree, then take a shower as they have water and power as of 24 hours ago.

The police have cordoned off downtown because of significant amounts of broken glass from the high-rise buildings and downed trees and branches. Everyone is under curfew 9pm to 6am for the remainder of the week. I don’t know who will be going to work tomorrow or the next few days.

This is going to be a lengthy clean-up and normalization process, with some residents having lost their homes and many who will be without power for several weeks.

On a closing note, FEMA spokesperson said they were “working on a process” to get hotel reimbursement for those whose homes are uninhabitable. One would think a process should have been in place for years and just be amended as technology changes (internet). Just give out the url and phone number and run with it! In addition, yesterday the City told people with no water to call 911. Then this morning, they told us to call 311, but 311 is not operational!

I’ve been instructed to add to the hurricane kit: painter’s tape for windows; an axe; and enough hard-sided water containers for 60 gallons of potable water. A generator would be nice, but we can’t use one here.

Hope all is well wherever you may be. Dee
ps frozen pizza for dinner. I can’t really wash dishes because don’t want to use precious water.