and then all hell broke loose

When I posted last Saturday, Beryl was bearing west and generally going to miss us and Houston except for a little wind and rain. Hahahahaha. Then it shifted west and hit us nearly dead on. Even so, only a category 1 storm. Hahahahaha. We got all our hurricane prep done Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and then waited for it to come through Sunday night. It didn’t bring much rain, only about 4 or 5 inches but it did bring high winds that spawned a record number of cyclonic tornadoes in a short period of time that uprooted and splintered trees all over the place and did all kinds of damage. I heard that Houston lost 5 transmission towers, but I don’t know how true that is, but 3 million people there lost power and about a third still haven’t had it restored.

I moved the car over to the shop yard across the street late afternoon on Sunday since we park it here under a big oak and a big crepe myrtle. Beryl started blowing into Wharton that evening. I was up most the night listening to the wind and the sound of branches thudding to the ground and limbs creaking as they were torn from the trunks. At one point I heard a train (there’s a track that runs parallel to the road at the other end of the street) and could not believe they were running a train during  hurricane. The little dog was in full on panic mode. The power started flickering about 4 AM Monday morning and went out completely at 4:30. The wind started to abate some after that and the little dog finally settled down and I guess I got a couple of hours of sleep. We woke up as it got light, still very windy but the rain had stopped and looked out the windows to see the yard totally trashed…leaves, twigs, branches small and large, and limbs carpeted the ground. 

I looked out the back window into the big backyard to see that two of the pecan trees had lost major limbs, some on the ground, some still hanging from at least 20’ up or higher, topped by the tornado that had bounced around (the sound of the train). 

We finally ventured out around noon to get a closer look at all the damage. The spot where we park the car looked like this. We cleared that area and the rest of the driveway so we could get in and out. 

The maple next to the front of the barn lost three limbs which fell next to it and the pecan tree that was closest to the garage got topped

but the magnolia between them was relatively untouched, just some small stuff. The second pecan that lost major limbs is by the back corner of the barn but they fell away from it so no damage to the barn. 

The third pecan furthest from the house was untouched and the dead tree at the back of the property is still standing. In the front one of the photinias lost one of its three trunks.

Fortunately nothing hit the house except for small stuff covering one section of the roof.

Later I went over to see what if any damage there was over at Pam’s/Robin’s house and found five or six shingles on the ground but couldn’t see any obvious damage to the roof.

The radar at this point showed another band of wind and rain that was supposed to hit about 2 PM but it never materialized and so about 3 we got in the car and drove around. It looked like the whole town was out of power. We only saw one place open, the Walmart which was running on generators. Everything else was dark and closed. The contents of the refrigerator were still cool enough for us to have cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch but by dinner time none of that was an option. So we got back in the car to see if anything had power restored and was open and found that the business district around the square had power and the Italian restaurant was open so we had dinner there. Coming home we passed the other business district with another restaurant that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner had power though everything was still closed. That night was hot but not horribly so because it was still overcast and still a little breezy. Marc had called the hospital earlier in the day to make sure my procedure was still on for Tuesday even though something like 80% of Houston was without power (so had we gotten a hotel, we’d have been in the same shape). 

continues next post…