Eight Feet Deep

due to this Chicagotribune.com headline:

GULF COAST CRISIS: AT THE PORT OF NEW ORLEANS
For weary emergency workers on ship, hope floats

Marine One goes for a spin out among the rigs off Cameron, La. GW asks Americans to conserve gas

But enough about George W. visiting those wasting away in Hurricane Rita-ville. I found out my apartment in Beaumont, Texas, apparently sustained no damage from Hurricane Rita. That is good news.

Hopefully some of my more undesirable neighborhood members, not naming any names but you can find one on the state sex offender registry, will resist the temptation to loot my apartment while I am away. I guess if you have to be burgled it’s best done by neighbors. I don’t know why I said that because I don’t believe it and it really doesn’t make any sense.

“We’re from the government. We’re here to help.”

GW and His Hairness Rick Perry were back as “Pancho and Lefty (Righty)” today as they looked at the utter destruction of Southeast Texas from Hurricane Rita.

GW: “Whoa, Rick Doodle. Look at that sumbitch. It sure is a torn-up sumbitch”
Rick: “That is a torn-up sumbitch, for sure, Mr. President.”

And so it goes.

I’m getting my rags together to return to Beaumont but GW and Rick apparently don’t want me to go home, according to the remarks Bush made this afternoon to the press:

“Again, the Governor has got a plan to make sure people don’t come back too early. He’s listening to the local judges and the mayors. Obviously, we want people to come home as quickly as possible. We want them to be able to do so in an orderly way. And when they get home, they find that there’s a — you know, as best as possible, power and water.”

Just what is the plan that the governor has? Are highway patrol and National Guard ringing the entire damn perimeter of eastern and southeastern Texas? I don’t know, I’m beginning to get just a bit ticked off at how much everyone and their brother who don’t live in the areas hit by the storm harp so rampantly on how those of us who live there should be kept out. Tell me how it is for our own good again? If I can survive without any undue burden on the authorities or Entergy Corp. or Halliburton then what difference will it make for me to live at home without any electricity? It just makes me want to get back home all the more.

If I was cynical (Me? Surely not!), I might think Gov. Goodhair was doing a little political posturing by visiting the Beaumont area for the third time since Rita hit. Just like when he was Lite Guv under GW, Ricky is borrowing from the GW play book o’ tricks by repeatedly making a show at the disaster scene. It is politically wise, not just because Perry is running for governor again next year. Some crap is sure to hit the fan over miscues made by the state in their disaster response to Rita.

Sure to be cussed and discussed will be the nightmare of the evacuations from the metropolitan areas. Also, I predict some heat over the missteps made in evacuating nursing homes from those areas. The latter issue in which I speak includes how the state tried to commandeer ambulances whose operators had long-standing agreements with nursing homes for just such emergencies. It threw the situation into chaos for awhile during that period of evacuation.

So lest you think that everything went smoothly and the state and federal governments are functioning like a well-oiled machine in the Rita aftermath, I invite you to read the fine print in some of the stories coming from around where I live. Or else, I have some prime real estate to sell you in Cameron Parish.

My town of Beaumont, Texas, which I haven’t seen since Thursday night.

This is what news geeks call a “developing story.” Yes, I made it through the hurricane, survived and guess I’ll have to make my own damn T-shirt. But I haven’t been home since Thursday night and I fled the godawful humidity and power failures and confusion and lack of news from small town East Texas for Dallas this morning.

I have some logistics to run, then I plan to go home to Beaumont. I don’t yet know what I face at home. That is why I say it’s a developing story. I was without news up there in the sticks by and large. I have yet to hear from a friend who might be able to tell me how my apartment came through the storm. I also hear the authorities may not “let me” into my hometown. It’s like, “Hey, it’s your town, but you can’t come in.” I don’t yet know about that because I am probably going to be doing some kind of media something or other, even if it’s writing something and selling it first rather than the introductory dance. I still haven’t seen the contribution I made from Newton, Texas, Saturday in the major publication I help out from time-to-time. I still intend to charge them.

What I will talk about is this. The storm was fierce, even 80 miles from the coast. The wind started moving in about dusk. It was very incremental. Rain was minimal. A few heavy downpours happened during the night, but the 95 degree heat Sunday sucked out what had already been little moisture.

I must confess, I took an Ativan and slept fitfully about six hours during the hurricane. But I woke up when the hurricane force winds actually hit and I heard a quick succession of three electric transformers in my brother’s neighborhood exploding.

Like so many places around the heavily wooded town in which I grew up and my brother and his family remains, tons of big, big, trees were uprooted. My brother had about six including two pines about 25-30 feet tall uprooted. This was at the house in which I grew up. The old cedar tree out front also fell, only a couple of feet from my pickup. Luckily, none of the nine people staying at my brother’s place had damaged cars. His home wasn’t hit. The house he uses for his shop — the house I spent my first 11 years — had an oak some 3 1/2 feet in diameter leave the ground and hit the front of the old home (portions of which are about 120 years old). Luckily, it sustained no major damage.

A lot of people around my old hometown were similarly lucky. Some had their homes heavily damaged by trees, but few were outright blown away by the wind. No fatalities there or major injuries of which I am aware. Some folks do have some major problems though. And structural damage was only the start for the woes from Rita.

I’ll try to get to more of that later.

Obviously, if I was in Dodge (City) I might not be fleeing a hurricane. I provided a little graphic to show my start, finish and route. It’s only 60 miles. Who knows how long it will take. I just hope I can get onto SH 87 from I-10 in Orange. If not, I will have to go across the river to Louisiana and try to make my way through the backroads. It should be a really fun night!

Unless I get hooked up with a computer and an Internet connection during the hurricane, this will be my last post for however long. Hopefully, we’ll come out this thing okay.

Later dude.