Hurricane Dolly Brought Dolly

I survived my first hurricane. Safely. A little uneventfully to be honest.

The news says this: Dolly started as a tropical storm, then was upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane before it hit South Padre Island on Wednesday. Dolly was apparently the most intense system to make landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Wilma in 05. The storm caused 122,800 customers to lose power in Texas, and dropped in isolated areas estimated amounts of over 16 inches (410 mm) of rain. The storm caused no deaths in Texas, but caused an estimated $1.5 billion dollars in damage.

My experience was this: There was a storm coming, meaning there may be rain during our Girls' Weekend that my gal pals from home & I had planned months ago to visit South Padre Island. Then, while I was working on my last blog entries, I heard in the coffee shop that the storm was a "tropical storm" and that we should probably get prepared. Which to me meant absolutely nothing considering that I don't even really live anywhere. Luckily Meeshy was smart enough to buy bottled water... though she also bought food to cook (good thinking except if the power is out). And being that she doesn't have a tv, a radio, or internet at her house, we only heard that the storm was becoming a hurricane by word of mouth.

Here is a list of items recommended by the newspaper (didn't see this until today):

• First-aid kit
• Extra prescription medications, written copies of prescriptions, other special medical items
• Important documents and records, photo IDs, proof of residence, information you may need to process insurance claims
• Cash (power outages mean banks and ATMs may be unavailable)
• Battery-operated radio and NOAA Weather Radio
• Flashlight with extra batteries
• Phone numbers of family and friends
• Road maps, a travel plan, hotel reservations, list of places between your town and your destination you can stop if the highways are clogged
• 3-day supply of non-perishable food, one gallon of bottled water per person per day,
• Coolers for food and ice storage, paper plates, plastic utensils
• Manual can opener, knife, tools, booster cables, fire extinguisher, duct tape, tarp, rope
• Blankets, pillows, sleeping bags and extra clothing
• Toilet paper, cleanup supplies, personal hygiene products

We had no radio, no tv, no batteries, no ice, very little cash, only one flashlight, and enough food (if we could cook it) for a meal or two. However, we lost power early on Wednesday and by this morning still hadn't regained it.

The storm in Weslaco wasn't too bad. No worse than storms I've seen before. Windy, yes; lots of blown off branches (and some down trees but we couldn't tell that from Meeshy's house). Rain, yes, but not really hard, just steady. No flooding where we were. Mainly we were just really bored with the power off and not able to go anywhere. I read, although I had to sit near the windows to get enough light. And our cell phones kept losing service, and eventually battery. In the early evening, when the storm was calmer, our friend picked us up in his truck and we found a Sonic burger that was open and got dinner -- yeah, in a hurricane! and Sonic burger was open! So at least we had dinner. Then just sitting around in the dark waiting for morning.

On Thursday, the storm had passed and our friend drove us around one of the neighboring cities, Donna, which was flooded pretty bad in some spots -- up to 4 feet! And the drainages were all full. One of the bridges was overflowed and cracking. The worst damage it seemed was to those who were living in those low-lying areas, who probably can afford the damage the least. We saw people just sitting up to their ankles in water. What can they do? Their cars are buried. Our friend towed two cars out of flooded roads. One man said he spent the night in his car that was in 3-4 ft of water! It was surreal. And sad to see the state of some people's houses and yards. What do they do? Do they end up moving? Living with feet of water in their yards? How long does it take to drain? And we drove past a lime tree orchard where there were hundreds of limes knocked down, ruined in the standing water.

We also, though, helped out a stranded pooch! She was picking at garbage on the side of road in the fields, far from any houses, and looked like she'd hardly eaten in weeks. We slowed down to go around her but she was edging toward the car as if to ask for help. When we stopped and got out, she came right up to us and started to lick our hands. And because Meeshy said that she wanted to get a dog, we picked her up and named her "Dolly." She looks pretty young, maybe a year or so old, and looks like she's had puppies. But she was flea and tick covered so she got a healthy flea bath first off. A day into it, she seems to be a pretty sweet dog.

We also could've really used a battery-operated fan because let me tell ya, it gets really hot when you have no a/c the day after a hurricane and you can't open the windows because the house is old and wood has swollen and you don't want to just open up to mosquitoes, which I heard get bad after a hurricane, and there is no wind. UGH! It was completely miserable. At least the stores started to open up again so we could go buy food that we didn't have to try to cook. But that night we ended up just sitting on the porch on the dark street (since no one had power) with some citronella candles lit drinking wine to pass the time til bed. It felt like it was at least 90' in the house.

And, to make matters worse, our Girls' Weekend had to be moved to Houston because South Padre Island was hit really hard. My friends were flying from Vegas, DC, Albuquerque, and Portland but they all had a connection in Houston. So we decided to just have our weekend retreat there. It's no beach but we'll make it fun. We always do.