Look and Leave day

On the Tuesday after the storm we were allowed to come back and look at the neighborhood. Looking back on it, this was just 3 days after the storm, but it seemed like forever between the evacuation and going back to check on the house. We drove up with the Tahoe, my van and a U-Haul hoping to recover our clothes, art and rugs.

The scene driving in was incredible. The freeway in Richmond and Sugarland was eerily quiet. Homes in Pearland were covered in trees and the lines to get gas stretched for miles. Debris piles along the sides of the highway and down the median started ten miles North of Tiki Island and were taller than my van. Bayou Vista looked like a war zone with boats and trailers on all the green spaces and along the roads. The Highway from Bayou Vista to Tiki Island had been covered in boats and debris hindering first responders getting into Galveston. This debris was just pushed to the sides of the road to allow a couple of lanes of traffic to pass.

The checkpoints began pretty far from Tiki. David, Hunter’s brother, was driving my van with me as the passenger. He would pass my resident card and ID over and we would be scrutinized by the police before being allowed to continue to the next stop. It took us over an hour to go about 10 miles. Hunter was almost turned around at the entrance to Tiki because we had the U-Haul with us.

The scene inside Tiki was no different than the other communities we had passed. Boats and outdoor furniture littered the lawns and canals. Jet Ski’s that you have never seen before were up in peoples’ flower beds. Most homes had lost the downstairs walls, garage doors and or outside stairs. Cars were flipped over or were found sideways inside their own garages. Hardly anyone had their own boat in their boathouse or yard.

I was ecstatic (to use a Fancy Nancy word) when I saw my house standing- with the roof still attached. It was a day of complete awe. We had a foot of very slippery mud covering every downstairs surface which made for some treacherous investigations. The breezeway was filled in with debris- most of which did not belong to me. The Tackle room doors blew off (probably were pushed in from the water pressure and then floated out). The freezer was still in there, but had obviously been swept up and banged around. A portion of the wall on the “apartment” side broke away allowing the contents of that room to be washed away.

The boat was caught in the slings by the motor and was pretty banged up. The cowling had sheared away on the main motor and caused damage to the roof of the boat house. When the water receded, the boat got caught and hung at a pretty severe angle by the bracket.

Yet, upstairs most things were fine. We had some water spots on the ceilings, but not too much and no obvious gaping holes in the roof. Our contractor had boarded up the house and he did an amazing job.

Not knowing when we would be able to move back in and not wanting mold to attack out entire lives, we moved all of our artwork and framed pictures to Hunter’s office in Houston. We also took our Oriental Rugs (purchased in Singapore) and all of our clothes. We figured we could work with whatever we found when we got back to the house. Of course we also had to clean out the fridge and freezer that had been without power for 5 days. Hunter was awesome and had it finished before I even came down from packing up clothes.