This will be my first direct hit hurricane. I have been through a number of near misses where we got hit by the outer edge of the storms. However this will be the first time the eye of the storm passes right over my house. At least it is only a category one storm so we should weather it fine. I have all my windows boarded up, the braces on the gazebo and the privacy fence around the pool braced so I think we are going to be fine. Of course since we live in a mobile home we will take shelter in my office building until the storm passes.

Stay safe, Tiger. Maybe that metal roof will blow away ..



og

HEY SHANE


I will be praying for you and your family.
also you mobile home


dgrimm60

I have a corrugated asphalt panels on my roof which have a lifetime guarrantee and are to stand up to 200 mph winds. I am more concerned about my rafters being blown off and taking the roof with them.

praying that all goes well. I know what is like to have the eye of the storm go over your home. A number of years ago when my mom had her knee replaced, my brother and his wife went down to spend time taking care of her for one week. During that week they had a hurricaine. Than the following week me and my wife went down and stay for the following week and another hurricaine went over. This one the eye went directly over her house. As I was planning to go home they were predicting another hurricaine so I stay another week. Than the following week my daughter and one of her friends spent a week with her. And would you believe it they had another hurricaine, but this one came up the west coast of florida but still rained on her house. She had to have her roof fixed that year. Anyway just letting you know that God will take care of you and your family.

pkrause

Get ready as it looks like it will be a Category 2 by the time it reaches shore. Here are some tips:
a)Don't leave your car or vehicle exposed or under trees
b)Have a radio and cellphone, the cellphone towers seem to keep on
c)Get bags of ice in a cooler and bottles of water, you may be drinking them for a few days if the regular water gets contaminated and stores are closed for repair.
d)Have a can openener, that is one I always forget, along with canned food for 3 days.
e)Gas up the car, and be prepared to go to a shelter or relatives in cause tornado like winds tear off the roof or other parts of the house.

and we will keep you in our prayers...

It has slowed down a lot. It was traveling at 12 mph and is down to 5 mph. I live about 40 miles inland. So at this speed it would take 8 hours to get to me and that amount of time on land should really break it up. We will see. The eye of the storm should be making landfall in the next couple of hours.

What? You mean FEMA doesn't deliver pizza?

Its not so much the hurricane but the mini-tornados it spawns that will rip up the roof and braces, the edge of the eye is full of them so even far from the shore, they will do some damage...

We will be praying for you and your family's safety.

When Fido looks at you and see's you dont have any dog food, and the kids dont see Eggo for breakfast, and your wife opens the refrigerator door to that 'wonderful' smell after the electricity has been off... , they will need more than pizza to keep em happy...

The hurricane should be on top of you, hope everyone is ok....

This one is slowing down so that means more time in the middle of the storm, that is not good...........

"..Hurricane Dolly has made landfall over South Padre Island at Category 2 strength with sustained 100 mph winds.

The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center reports that at noon CDT, the eye of Dolly was located over South Padre Island, about 35 miles northeast of Brownsville, Texas. The Category 2 storm has virtually come to a virtual stop. The eye is expected to move over the South Texas mainland early this afternoon.

Maximum sustained winds are still around 100 mph with higher gusts. An unofficial gust of 119 mph has been recorded east of Matamoros, Mexico, while an 80 mph gust has been reported in the town of South Padre Island.

Hurricane-force winds extend up to 25 miles from the storm's center, and tropical storm-force winds extend up to 140 miles..."

Well the lights keep going on and off here. Two major cities east of us have lost power. We are in Mercedes.

Hey, Shane, I thought of you this morning when I was checking the weather. We have a partner store in Brownsville. They aren't answering the phone today for some reason. Keep us posted.

We called our neighbor and she said the power has been off on our block for 3 hours. Here in my office we haven't lost power yet. Wind is blowing hard. I hope there isn't too much damage at home.

Shane, be sure to drop in every once in a while to let us know you haven't been blown away. Hope all is well at home. Let us know what you find.

Stay safe, Shane....And let us know when you are out of danger....

We are feeling quite blessed. There is no wind-damage to speak of to our home. Our neighber to the east lost a number of shingles from his home and the neighbor to the west lost his entire roof. Everything inside has been destroyed. He will have to gut the house and completely remodel.

That said, the entire subdivision is under water. The police and fire department came evacuating everyone. I got a picture of them in their boat. I will update my website later with the pictures. I live in a mobile home with a built-on addition that I built myself. It is all on top of a concrete foundation with anchors cast into the concrete (which I also did myself) and the home has brick skirting (which, of course, I did myself). The mobile home is 36" above the slab and the addition is 24" above the slab. The top of the slab is itself 16" above the top of the curb. So my house is dry although there is about 30" of water covering the street at the edge.

We are now going to be staying with a Mexican pastor who lives here in Texas but whose district is in Mexico. Hopefully the water goes down within a week and we can move back into our home. There are so many people that have lost so much, many right around me, I just really feel like God either protected us or is rewarding me for building stuff the way it is suppose to be built. I was really concerned about my rafters coming off my roof because I wasn't sure about the way I tied them onto the structure. The hurricane stalled just north of our home so we were hit with hurricane-force winds for eight or ten hours.

What a horrible experience. Do you have insurance? Will FEMA help you?

Yeah, I heard they have a bunch of extra mobile homes sitting around...

Seriously, Shane, I'm glad your home survived so well!!

I wouldn't wish those homes on Shane.

Goodness, me neither! But for some reason that was the first thing I thought of when you mentioned FEMA helping. Don't know why.....

We don't have insurance. Maybe I should buy some, huh? I have auto and life insurance but no home. But really, I don't think I would have a claim. Everything is in tact. We are very fortunate. The neighbors are thinking that the government is going to give us some assistance. I am not so sure the government will and,,, I don't think I need any. What I need is some sunshine to dry up the waters. When my boy saw all the water he said, Dad, it's just like Noah's flood and we are on the ark.

Glad all is well!!

Gotcha. Talking about that "other" metal roof.

Glad you guys are ok.

Glad you are ok! Been thinking of you there in Texas!

Praise the Lord that you and yours were not hurt, and your home made it through.

pkrause

Shane, you were certainly blessed this time. But I would look into insurance anyway. It would be nice, in the event of anything coming down the pike, to at least be able to purchase clothing and food and rent someplace if you did suffer devistating conditions like your neighbor.

I talked to my neighbor that lost his roof. He has insurance and is lucky. His house is built up on block piers so the water never got to his floor. The reason he is lucky is because if the flood water had reached his floor his insurance company could argue that not all of his damage is from wind and thus not pay him as much for the damage. Wind insurance is different than flood insurance. We don't live in a flood plane so we can't buy flood insurance. Well, that may change now.

I have been picked up as a part-time reporter for our local newspaper and am working on a flood story for next week's edition. Our storm sewer drains into a drainage ditches which empty into a flood way. Once the flood way reaches a certain height they have to close the gates from the drainage ditches so the floodway waters can be contained. Once they close the gates the drainage ditches backup and the storm sewer no longer works. What is needed is a lift station, which is a big pump, to pump the water from the drainage ditches into the flood way. Our flood way looks like it is only at about 25% capacity so there is a lot of room for these flood waters but no means to get them into the reservoir.

Once the waters go down we will need to pump out our septic tank. The City was out there today taking hot food and water to people still in their homes. They have a pump out there pumping the water out of the subdivision and into a field on the other side of a drainage ditch. One of our city commissioners was there distributing the food.

No one died in the storm. The last category 2 hurricane that hit here left almost 60 dead so we have come a long way in hurricane preparation but as my flooded subdivision shows, we still have a way to go.

Glad your family is safe Shane!

That brings back some bad memories.. hurricanes Andrew, Ivan, Katrina, Frances, Charley, Wilma....it will be nice when we get to heaven and dont have to worry about anything blowing our house down.....


Hope everything turns out alright Shane, and we will keep you in our prayers...

We returned home yesterday. There was still water in the street but we could see our lawn again. There was about 4" of water in the street when I went to work this morning and it was all gone when I came home. The septic tank is full and the ground is too wet to get a truck back there to pump it out. I opened a clean out and am just letting our waste water run on the ground. We have a camping, portable toilet we are using so that we don't send any human waste down the drain. Our tap water isn't safe to drink without boiling it first so we are drinking bottled water. The National Guard has been bringing hot meals and water out to all of us in this subdivision twice a day. Today may have been the last day since the streets are dry now.

Praise the Lord!

pkrause

I'm so sorry about these disasters. All I can say is people need to be ready to meet their Maker. Death is right around the corner in one form or another.

2 Cor. 5:6 Therefore [we are] always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
5:8 We are confident, [I say], and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
5:9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

To be absent from the body is to be ready for death at any time. I know that's a new one for some, but that's what it means.