PING: cringer and loren

[cartman]

Y'all be careful. It looks like Dolly is coming to kick your ass. If y'all end up needing a place to stay, my door is open up here.

[Cringer]

Cool man, appreciate the offer thats for sure. We will see what happens though, just gassed up the van (which I would have to drive illegally because of expired stickers :) ) just incase we need to evacuate. If they order one I will go, but otherwise I would stay. We had a Category 3 go just above us 2-3 back (year of Katrina and Rita I think) and we came out fine. Hopefully the same happens here with this being smaller (so far).

[Lathum]

good luck all of you

[JeeberD]

Stay safe, guys...

[Cringer]

Harlingen, TX has a mile long line of cars waiting for sandbags.

I was thinking of going into the back yard and bagging some of the dirt the dogs keep nice and torn up for them to lay in. :)

Clouds are moving south now though, which is a bit different for down here. It is coming, but my biggest concern is if I am perhaps a bit to laid back about this thing. I just am not real sure there is much to do in the way of preparing since we don't really flood where I live. I like that we will get rain though.

[Cringer]

Not sure what I was thinking about when I made sure to get a 30 minute jog in this morning. I just finished filling up 14 sandbags and moving them into the trunk and moving them around here at the house. I need to do a couple more later tonight. And right now I just finished cleaning out the rain gutters. I just doubled my workout, and it is probably all for nothing. :p

[Cringer]

Getting stronger and slowing down to give itself more time to do so. Woohoo, oh the joy of that. Bagged up some more sandbags to double up on a couple spots I worry about, other then that it is wait and see.

The wife made a quick run out to pick up two unclse last night who lives out on her family's longtime property which has a old wood home built 1000 years ago and sits about a mile from the Rio Grande, so a flood area. We put them up in a hotel nearby.

Otherwise I made a quick trip to the corner store this morning and the taco ladies were cooking like mad, like any other day. It was pretty funny. And I like how the neighbor (who is an optometrist, sp?) made his wife go over and check their office this morning. What a great guy.....

[RendeR]

Be safe Cringer. Hope all turns out well.

[Flasch186]

it's Cringer, he'll be fine :)

[JeeberD]

Good thing you already gassed up the van, supposedly there are gas shortages down there now...

[oliegirl]

Have we heard from Cringer?

NM...missed his post earlier, had a blonde moment...

[Flasch186]

Cringer, right now, is outside directing the hurricane away by simply blowing at it:


see where he blew it to:

http://stupidevilbastard.com/Images/katrina_goes12_thumb.jpg

[Cringer]

The hurricane refuses to come ashore, has been sitting off the coast for hours now and has barely moved. We live inland a little ways so wind has not been too bad yet, but we are coming up on a couple inches of rain as we get our best burst of stuff right now. Harlingen is about halfway between us and Brownsville/SPI, and they have power outages already, as does large chunks of Brownsville. The island might fair better then a lot of the inland areas, as of right now this thing is supposed to cut straight across at some point and do it very slowly. By the time it gets to us sustained wind should be down to about 65 MPH they say. About 2 months ago we had a storm with winds at 60 MPH and it completely destroyed a mobil home park about 12 miles from me. This may not be a huge hurricane but I think it could really be a disaster for the poor areas and for flood areas, which there are many being such a low laying area.

The good news is the mailman just stopped by, thank good the U.S. Postal Service wanted to make sure we got a couple bills today. :D Another funny thing to happen was we have companies from up north calling us asking about BPO orders and when we will get them in, or if we can take new orders due ASAP. One lady had no idea there was a hurricane anywhere so I had to explain to whole thing to her. She said she would call back in a couple days.

There is now a chance this thing could move a little north before it cuts across into Mexico, which has good and bad sides to it. By the way, once this thing is into Mexico the trouble may not be over. It will hit the mountains which they say will double an unimaginable amount of rain, and all that rain from those mountains drains into the Rio Grande. Going to be interesting.

[Draft Dodger]

forget Cringer.

how's Loren?
:)

[Cringer]

forget Cringer.

how's Loren?
:)

Laying down and/or sleeping most of the day since she was up a lot last night, combined with the storm making her RA flare up a lot and giving her some pain. I have caffeine and no RA, plus I got more sleep, so I am good to go.

It seems like this thing went up just enough that where I live will see just a crap load of rain, we may not get any worse wind then we have right now in the 20-30 MPH with higher gusts. If it doesn't turn straight west then it should pass above the house just enough. Maybe, still hours away from knowing I guess.

[Cringer]

Screw this, I am not making any more reports on direction. I walk out to the TV after the last post a minute ago and they say it is going straight west again it appears, which goes along with the 'stair stepping' it was doing in the gulf. I am just going to go back to playing NCAA '09 until I lose power. :D

[cartman]

Meanwhile, 350 miles north, we are starting to get the outer band clouds making an appearance here in the Austin area.

[Cringer]

I have power and internet, woohoo. Power has gone out 4 times, internet was down for a while, both working right this second though so cool beans about that. More rain and wind where I am. Sustained winds of 45 right now. In a place that has had new houses popping up everywhere for 10 years I always enjoyed living in an older neighborhood. Old trees suck though and I am waiting for one or two of mine to bite the dust. My neighbor had one in her front yard break off on two sides. Crap all over of course, lots of rain. Blah blah blah. Still alive and nothing broken so far so it's not too bad for us I guess.

Power just flashed off, lets see if this bad boy posts for me.....

[JeeberD]

Hopefully that rain makes it up here. My lawn could use it...

[Cringer]

dola- what is left of the eye gets to us in 3 hours. Slow piece of crap....

[Cringer]

Back in the fold. Was without power for about 24 hours, spent most of the day looking around and soaking in the damage, and cleaning up around the house/neighborhood. House came out ok. Had 3 large trees all fall away from the house. Went and bought a chain saw this morning (thankfully Lowes had power, most businesses or homes didn't) and started with a neighbors tree that fell in the street and was blocking most of it, moved on to my other neighbor's tree which was taking up her whole driveway. Tomorrow I need to do the tree in my driveway, and once the water has goes away from my back yard I get what used to be my biggest tree. I lucked out though, plenty of damage around, flooding. I am dead tired and will post some picks and talk more about it tomorrow....

[path12]

Glad to hear you're all right though.

[duckman]

+1

[Flasch186]

best of luck on the cleanup Cringe

[Fidatelo]

great to hear things went ok!

[Lorena]

+4

[Lathum]

glad you are all well cring

[Cringer]

Ok so here are some pictures from yesterday morning with captions I guess....

Part of my backyard, which was mostly covered with 4 inches of water except a few spots. I went walking through it and a few times would sink about 6 inches into the ground, was kind of fun watching the dogs walk around in it though...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6394.jpg

Our big Eucalyptus tree that fell in the backyard. It waited until the wind shifted from southeast to northeast. It was 12 feet from my covered patio, if it fell angled southeast it would have taken that out and ended up in the house...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6395.jpg

The water near the back of my backyard, and the water standing on the golf course...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6396.jpg

Another golf course shot, with one of the older hotels in the region far in the background...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6397.jpg

Zoomed in on the hotel...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6398.jpg

What used to be two trees just on the neighbor's property near my driveway, they ended up in my driveway...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6401.jpg

My other neighbor's, this is a tree next to her driveway, about 8 feet from my house and thankfully the wind had it fall into her driveway. Behind that is her other tree that was one of the first trees to get torn apart Wednesday....
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6403.jpg

Same crap, from the front...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6405.jpg

Back to the first neighbor (which is actually an empty lot right now as they tore down their house a while back and are getting ready to build another one), this tree fell in the street to block most of it....
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6407.jpg

Two houses down from me, flooded outside and inside...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6418.jpg

My neighbor's again, she never got water inside but had her front and back yards totally flooded....http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/Cringer/100_6420.jpg

That is all I am posting I think. The house that was flooded had one on the side of that that got some water in it as well. A couple more trees in the neighborhood fell in the streets. All the houses on my side of the street next to the golf course had at least flooded back yards. Just a bunch of normal hurricane damage all around I guess.

In general, these pictures are from 60 miles or so inland from the coast. Most places were without power around here yesterday, some still today. In total 235,000 homes in the region without power yesterday morning. By late last night that number was down to 130,000 homes. There was major flooding in the 'mid-valley' region, where the freeway is under a lot of water, whole towns are under 1+ feet of water. The national media I saw last night focuses only on South Padre Island or Brownsville, SPI got hit hard in the end but Brownsville didn't get hit nearly as bad as the rest of the Valley where we had from 12"-25" inches of rain. 25" of rain is our yearly average, lol.

Ok, I am back to cleaning up now. I still need to get the trees in my driveway taken care of as yesterday was spent doing the neighbor's trees. My street of the neighborhood is mostly older folks, and of course the vacant lot next to me and the flooded house you saw is vacant because the lady died a couple months ago. It was pretty much just me as the asshole guy across from my neighbor spent the day helping the three guys next to him clear a small tree in their driveway and then pick up small branches from his yard as they mostly drank beer and watched me. I knew I never liked the guy for a reason. :D The tree in my backyard will have to wait until I don't sink in it anymore. Although this reminds me, I got to get an 18" chainsaw because of this. I always wanted a chainsaw but never had a real reason to get one until now. woohoo! ;)

[Cringer]

One more thing to add that is kind of funny in a way to me. The house right across the street from me is owned by a (I think) the Catholic Church, and it is were about 5 nuns live. The house had not one thing happen to it that anyone has seen. Almost enough to make me wonder a little about my stance on religion. :D

[JeeberD]

Man, that's one thing that I worry about with our house. There are two big trees in our front yard, and the bigger of the two overhangs the roof quite a bit. If a big storm or tornado ever comes through here, we might wind up losing our guest bedroom...

[oliegirl]

So glad you are all OK and that no one was hurt, and also that your house escaped any tree damage. I'm thinking that whatever protection those Nuns had might have overlapped onto your property as well.