Status Report

I am too tired to do anything physical for a while so I will rest and write. Last night I fell asleep in the middle of CSI and did not wake up until 2:30 AM. This was the best sleep I have had since about September 19. After that date, I started really worrying about Beaumont and Rita.

Last night I ran the dishwasher. The city has said to run the washing machine through a cycle without clothes and run each faucet 10 minutes. This morning I had a tub bath and washed my hair. The water appears nice and clear. I am assuming my house’s pipes were filled with pre-storm water, and the neighbors all around me have been running water for several days so the pipes surrounding me were already flushed. I am washing a load of clothes now.

I drove to my Bank of America branch this morning. They have a trailer which is a mobile bank with ATM’s in the parking lot. The bank’s roof had major damage. I talked to a BOA employee. He said the damage was mainly over the tellers’ windows. The vault and my safe deposit box suffered no damage. The one important thing I forgot to take with me when I evacuated was the keys to my safe deposit box. The keys are safe. That worry is gone. I then went by the beauty shop where I get my hair styled. It is going to be a long time before I get a haircut there. There is major damage to the strip shopping center where it is located.

I headed to Market Basket near my house. I had read that it is well stocked because they got power back early in the week. It was not open yet. I then went to the post office again and stood in a slightly shorter line than yesterday. I talked to the clerk and told her how I left a yellow hold mail card in my box before I left. I also filled out the hold mail pages on the internet. I had my confirmation number and tried to cancel the hold mail order last night on the internet. It said my hold mail number was not valid. After a long wait the clerk came back and said they had no mail for me for the second time. I was getting quite frustrated.

I then went to the Wal-Mart Super Center. They are open for business but have a very limited selection of refrigerated food and no frozen food. I got another half gallon of milk because the bottle that I got at Kroger yesterday is leaking. I also got cleaning supplies. The shelf where baking soda should be was empty. I wanted some for my refrigerator and freezer.

When I got back home, I saw the mailman putting mail in our mailboxes. I went over to tell him my tale of woe. He pulled out a handful of my mail with the yellow hold mail card on top. It was just first class mail. He said the magazines and catalogs will come later. We are really lucky to have such a good mailman. They have an awful job on their hands to get the back log of mail delivered. A couple of things I was expecting were missing, but I have already paid the bills because I can view them online. No sign of a water bill. None of the neighbors have received theirs.

A cool front went through the area last night. The temperature was only in the mid-seventies. I got plastic bags and started picking up all the blown shingles that were in my yard. I filled 6 or 7 33-gallon trash bags with shingles and pieces of gutter and flashing. I got into fire ants and got about a dozen bites. The bags were so heavy. I have a hand truck and my neighbor took them down to the end of street where there is a dump of fences, tree limbs and trash like the shingles. There has been no trash pickup since the storm. We have a private street and the city does not provide trash removal for us. We use Eastex Trash Systems. They have not been answering their calls. My neighbor on the west did get hold of them, and they are supposed to come by on Monday.

Some people must not have got the word that the city has set up special sites for dumping spoiled food. Some of the neighbors have put spoiled food out by the curb. The stench is overwhelming.

My neighbor nailed the missing board on my back fence. I think I am the only person in the neighborhood with a standing fence all the way around the yard. There was a shingle standing up in one of my gutters. My neighbor got his ladder and removed it.

Jose’s wife called me and said they are all well and safe. Jose is going to try and come by and mow my grass this weekend. Once that is done the exterior of my house will be back to normal

I took my second bath of the day. I didn’t eat breakfast until almost 10 AM. I have been neglecting to eat ever since the evacuation started. I am going to stop and eat lunch.

The man my neighbor recommended for the sheetrock repairs is going to come by and give me an estimate.