Life is slowly getting back to normal in Houston. Gas is a little more plentiful (and the price is falling again), perishables are found in the grocery stores, and schools began to open this week. It's been a bit weird around here, but a relaxing week and a half off from life.(for the most part)
Being in Dallas as an evacuee, you kind of forget that things aren't normal at home. The first signs of worry were when the signs on the highway were telling me not to travel to Houston or Beaumont, for lack of fuel and food. Tim had come home the day we got electricity, which was Tuesday for us, and I was following on Thursday. Our water came on a few days prior, so we were pretty set as far as living, as long as we had enough gas to get there, and back out again if needed. We hauled fuel, food and ice in with us. Driving in to town was surreal. It was so still, dark, dead, everything a mess, and it was the middle of the day. Trees were everywhere, along with debris. Roofs and signs strewn across the road or into houses and other buildings. The power continued to flicker and the water still goes off every once in a while, long enough to scare us, and then returns. Some of the stores are still not open, some are running off of generators. Target only had half of their lights on yesterday, the camping aisle was empty, only 5 bottles of bug spray and not one case of Coke!
The really amazing thing about this whole disaster is that it's brought us all out of our houses and into the streets. We've spent more time with neighbors in the past week than we have our whole time living here, and even shared water, food, supplies, and pool water to flush the toilet! Our neighbor behind us (who I asked you to pray for earlier) came over and raked our whole front yard before we even got home! The sense of community has been amazing!
So, back to life we go. Tim started back to work today and Katelynn starts school again on Wednesday. As we go back into our daily routine that we already had, our prayer is that the sense of community will remain. It's been so refreshing to have those friendships and to have someone to walk alongside in life as neighbors. Our society is so closed to each other and this has been a natural disaster that has caused us to all come out of our shells and support and help each other when it's needed the most.
These are some pictures of our yard, the front already cleaned up by our neighbor!
Being in Dallas as an evacuee, you kind of forget that things aren't normal at home. The first signs of worry were when the signs on the highway were telling me not to travel to Houston or Beaumont, for lack of fuel and food. Tim had come home the day we got electricity, which was Tuesday for us, and I was following on Thursday. Our water came on a few days prior, so we were pretty set as far as living, as long as we had enough gas to get there, and back out again if needed. We hauled fuel, food and ice in with us. Driving in to town was surreal. It was so still, dark, dead, everything a mess, and it was the middle of the day. Trees were everywhere, along with debris. Roofs and signs strewn across the road or into houses and other buildings. The power continued to flicker and the water still goes off every once in a while, long enough to scare us, and then returns. Some of the stores are still not open, some are running off of generators. Target only had half of their lights on yesterday, the camping aisle was empty, only 5 bottles of bug spray and not one case of Coke!
The really amazing thing about this whole disaster is that it's brought us all out of our houses and into the streets. We've spent more time with neighbors in the past week than we have our whole time living here, and even shared water, food, supplies, and pool water to flush the toilet! Our neighbor behind us (who I asked you to pray for earlier) came over and raked our whole front yard before we even got home! The sense of community has been amazing!
So, back to life we go. Tim started back to work today and Katelynn starts school again on Wednesday. As we go back into our daily routine that we already had, our prayer is that the sense of community will remain. It's been so refreshing to have those friendships and to have someone to walk alongside in life as neighbors. Our society is so closed to each other and this has been a natural disaster that has caused us to all come out of our shells and support and help each other when it's needed the most.
These are some pictures of our yard, the front already cleaned up by our neighbor!
This is our shed that kept the garden tools and equipment. It literally looked like someone threw a granade in the door and ran. The walls just exploded off the sides.
No comments:
Post a Comment