We got up early this morning and drove to The Woodlands to check on our house. We haven't been able to get in touch with anyone so we weren't sure what to expect. Driving into town we saw a bunch of uprooted trees and down power lines. The first sign of property damage we saw was a SUV in our neighborhood that had been crunched by a fallen pine tree. Everything appeared fine at our house until we opened the front door and saw the view out our dining room door. The near 100 foot pine tree had uprooted and fallen toward our neighbor's house. We are so lucky that the wind was not blowing the other way, but unfortunately our neighbors did suffer damage from it. As the tree fell, it split another tree in our yard in half, plowed through our fence, and pierced the neighbor's roof before finally snapping in half and creating a bridge from our yard to their pool.
After talking with various neighbors, we quickly learned that this was some of the more minor damage in our neighborhood. Two of the houses across the street had trees fall on the back of their house, a house down the street was sliced by a tree in their yard, another tall tree fell and took out my friend's fence before landing in her pool... the list goes on. I would guess that about 1 out of every 3 houses in the neighborhood suffered some sort of significant damage. The people with roof damage were hurt even further by the HUGE thunderstorms that passed through last night. Two of our neighbors have water damaged walls and another had multiple rooms that flooded due to the large hole in their roof.
Since The Woodlands area is still completely out of power, we have decided to stay at the ranch for a few more days. Woody brought his commercial-size generator with us incase we needed it and ended up leaving it with the neighbors to use. They were extremely grateful to have a power source. Besides the food from my freezer, we also brought another child back to the ranch with us. Tyler's friend from the neighborhood jumped on the invitation - he is grateful to have video games.
We feel very lucky that we didn't have any damage to our house and feel for those who do. It is not going to be a quick recovery. The latest reports we are hearing is up to three weeks before power is completely restored. As of now, schools in our area are closed Monday and Tuesday. I'm sure the return on Wednesday will be dependent on if power has been restored or not.
I'm still a bit in shock from what I saw today. Nobody got hurt and the damage done is fixable, but being in the middle of the situation is a feeling I am not able to describe. Right now I feel like I should be back at home with the rest of the neighbors, but I also know there really isn't much I can do there until power is restored. So, for now I sit here at my in-law's beautiful, comfy ranch home feeling a bit displaced.
After talking with various neighbors, we quickly learned that this was some of the more minor damage in our neighborhood. Two of the houses across the street had trees fall on the back of their house, a house down the street was sliced by a tree in their yard, another tall tree fell and took out my friend's fence before landing in her pool... the list goes on. I would guess that about 1 out of every 3 houses in the neighborhood suffered some sort of significant damage. The people with roof damage were hurt even further by the HUGE thunderstorms that passed through last night. Two of our neighbors have water damaged walls and another had multiple rooms that flooded due to the large hole in their roof.
Since The Woodlands area is still completely out of power, we have decided to stay at the ranch for a few more days. Woody brought his commercial-size generator with us incase we needed it and ended up leaving it with the neighbors to use. They were extremely grateful to have a power source. Besides the food from my freezer, we also brought another child back to the ranch with us. Tyler's friend from the neighborhood jumped on the invitation - he is grateful to have video games.
We feel very lucky that we didn't have any damage to our house and feel for those who do. It is not going to be a quick recovery. The latest reports we are hearing is up to three weeks before power is completely restored. As of now, schools in our area are closed Monday and Tuesday. I'm sure the return on Wednesday will be dependent on if power has been restored or not.
I'm still a bit in shock from what I saw today. Nobody got hurt and the damage done is fixable, but being in the middle of the situation is a feeling I am not able to describe. Right now I feel like I should be back at home with the rest of the neighbors, but I also know there really isn't much I can do there until power is restored. So, for now I sit here at my in-law's beautiful, comfy ranch home feeling a bit displaced.
view from my dining room / tree in our backyard
tree split by falling tree / assessing the damage with the neighbors
our tree through the neighbor's roof / neighbor's pool
house across the street / tree sliced through roof few houses from us
Click here to view these photos and a few more on my shutterfly page
2 comments:
We're worried about our dear friends,Jane Yates and Bob Finehout, who live in the Woodlands. We hope they're alright.
We can't do much for them from Silver Spring,Maryland,except say a lot of prayers and wait to hear.
Eileen and Lee Woods
My parents live in the Panther Creek area and the last I heard from them was a voicemail left yesterday afternoon. They seemed to have lucked out with very little damage to their house. Most of their neighbors weren't as fortunate. They packed up the Fridge and freezer to take to an emergency shelter and donate. I'm not sure where they went after that, Heck they weren't sure where they were going to be able to stay in the men time. I hope to hear from them soon. At least I know they are ok.
Brent in North Carolina
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