One Year Ago

I was standing in my driveway wondering where in the world do I begin. My husband was out of state working and Ike had hit the day before. Doodle had left the week before the storm hit when we thought it was going to hit closer to Corpus Christi, the girls and I were safe, we had gone up to his dads to wait out the storm and came home after it had passed and Doodle came home the first chance he got.

We had a yard full of water, limbs, fallen trees and ant beds. Time for the clean up to begin, that afternoon, I loaded up my girls into my truck and headed to Lowes to buy a big garden wagon. I figured that would be the easiest way to start picking up all the limbs and trying to get back to some sense of normal, if not for me and my sanity, I had to do it for my kids. I also had to get a new meter pole and meter box and have someone put them up before I could even think about getting the electricity hooked back up. You see, the top of a pine tree had broken off and fallen into an oak tree which then uprooted and took out the power line that ran to my pole. When the tree landed on the line, it snapped the pole at the ground, and that was just behind my house. On the side of my house and yard, a pine tree fell and landed on the main line that runs the length of the road. We live on 5 acres and in order for the linemen and others to get to us, and the others that live out here by me, the roads had to be cleared. All in all, it was two weeks before we got power, but we were lucky...we have a travel trailer and a generator. I had filled up 5, 5 gallon gas cans the day before Ike hit, so we had an air conditioned place to stay. I had a bed to sleep in and propane to cook with, so I hated complaining. Especially when others had lost absolutely everything. Needless to say, living in South Texas, you know of the possibilities of these types of things happening. Kind of like snowstorms in the North and earthquakes and wildfires in the East. Thankfully, this year has been a quiet hurricane season for everyone in the United States. As I sit here comfortably in the recliner and type this post on my laptop watching the Today show, I can't help but think of all of the people who lost their lives because they chose not to leave or were simply unable to leave. I just hear dlast week where they have found the remains of a victim of Ike who was washed away when the storm hit. God Bless their family and those who are still dealing with their losses.