The Calm Before the Storm & The Aftermath

Glenn took Sharon and Maggie to the church to play volleyball for a few hours last night thinking that they would be back before the storm rolled in. Kristie called me just a few minutes after they left to see how everyone was doing. I told her Zoe and I were fine and that the others were at the church. She let me know that she heard several hours earlier that there was a curfew for Fort Bend County and no one was to be out past 7:00pm. I called Glenn and let him know what I had heard. I thought he was going to be on his way back home so I started watching the storm from our windows. From the window in the play room I can see the street behind our neighborhood that he would driving on to come home. I decided to take some pictures of the clouds rolling in while I waited. Here is what I saw...




As I sat waiting and watching I realized it had been quite a while since I had talked to Glenn and they should have been home already. I decided to call and see what was going on. They had decided to stay and play because no one else that showed up had heard about the curfew. As the clouds got heavier and darker I started to get more and more concerned and wishing that they were home. Just a little bit later I heard them coming in the door. What a relief!

We had set up our air mattress in the living room downstairs for Sharon and Maggie to sleep on and Glenn, Zoe and I were all going to be in our bed upstairs. Needless to say there was not much sleep going on as the storm got stronger and stronger and louder and louder. Maggie was getting very nervous about all the noises she was hearing, especially the wind blowing through the chimney, so she grabbed her pillow and blanket and headed upstairs. We decided to bring up the air mattress and put it in our TV room so I could lay with Maggie and Zoe and hopefully keep our little Nervous Nelly somewhat calm. She was a little bit excited to sleep on the mattress and she said "Hey Mom, it's like we're on a camp out. Only inside. It's like a camp-in". We figured that there was enough room to bring in Maggie's twin mattress for Glenn to sleep on so we drug that in and tried to get some sleep. It took a very long time for Maggie to get settled down, but she did eventually nod off and slept pretty well the rest of the night. Zoe was pretty much out cold all night. Glenn was up and down for the first several hours because there were tornado watches and warnings all through the night. He was impressed and concerned by the green lightning that was lighting up the night. There were several times throughout the night when it sounded like we were going to be blown over. Lots of strong winds and pounding rain. There was a lot of lightning, but we didn't hear much thunder.

When it was finally light enough outside and the winds and rain had calmed down enough we went out to see if there was any damage to the house and our van. A couple of trees were bending over, but there was no damage to the house, the roof our the car. We thought it might be interesting to take a drive around the neighborhood and see what we could find. Lots of shingles in yards, lots of branches in the streets and in yards, storm drains blocked by debris, trees broken and fences knocked down. We are very blessed that we did not sustain any damage, we didn't have to swim out of the neighborhood, and we are all healthy & happy to be a live.
This house is around the corner from us and this is the most structural damage we saw in our area.

This house is in the neighborhood around the corner. From what we can tell the tree didn't actually damage the house. It is just resting on it.

These flags are at Maggie's school. I don't remember seeing them before the hurricane, but I'm pretty sure they didn't look like this.

This tree is also at Maggie's school. It was a very large, pretty, shady tree. I'm sure all the Mom's waiting in the carpool lane will miss it.

There are a lot of houses and businesses that have lost their fences.

Now we are just trying to figure out ways to entertain and occupy Maggie and Zoe and how to live without power for who knows how long! FUN TIMES IN HOUSTON!