Flooding

April 28th, Jon and I were woken up at 3 am by the rain. It was storming outside... lightning, thundering, heavy rain. We wound up dozing every now and then until 5 am, but for the most part we wound up just cuddling and listening to the storm. Jon went ahead into work while I watched the news seeing if anywhere was flooded, especially with the little bmw I am driving right now! Turns out that a storm system had practically stalled over Houston over night and dumped up to 11 inches of rain over a few hours. Jon called me from the car and said I wouldn't be able to get out from Philippine because of the water. He had been fine though in the Expedition.

A little while later, when Mom had gotten up, I jumped into her car and went to check out the two exits from our part of the neighborhood and found that we were flooded in. I didn't push the car too deeply into it, but I knew my car would never make it. The news was saying that if you could stay home until the middle of the day, to do so. It would hopefully give the system time to drain properly. The bayou in our neighborhood breached the banks, which caused most of the flooding down the streets...

Jon was sent home and called me from the middle of the neighborhood. He had driven through some of the water and was afraid to go further in it. He had pulled into someone's drive way and talked to them to see if he could leave the car there. He also helped her move her cars up further in the driveway and then he walked home. I went out part way to meet him at the bayou. It had certainly been over its banks earlier and was starting to go down at that moment. By the time Jon got to me, he was soaked up to the top of his thighs.

When walked to get the car later, we realized that if you had walked in the middle of some of the streets that the water would have been up to your waist easily. We just skirted through peoples yards where we had to walk to get in less water. Jon and I rested in the middle of the day and by 9 or 10 apparently the water had gone down enough that Senate and Lakeview/Philippine were no longer flooded. At about 3 pm, Jon and I decided that since the water had receded and neither of us were at work, that we would take a ride to the Woodlands to Fat Ogre Comics and maybe get the next two booster decks for Killer Bunnies.

Well... That was not so hot of an idea we found out. The ride was simple enough until we hit 45 north just before the Woodlands. I-45 had flooded over and was not draining. There was only one lane open to go through the flooded section. It wound up taking us a lot longer to get through to the games store and then to get home. We actually went a back way home to avoid the water on 45 south. We were glad that the store was open after all of that though, and wound up buying 5 of the booster packs and two sets of the blank cards so we could make our own. We now only need two more decks to complete the game. We may also get the Kinder Bunnies to add to it as well.

Cape Palliser

We took Becca to Cape Palliser, which is sort of outside of Wellington. On the drive there we noticed a Tsumani warning sign! I didn't notice that last time I was there...


Then we saw the seals at the seal colony. It is so cool you can literally go right up to them - though that is not suggested as they will attack if you get too close, but you could!






(On a side note - seals may be cute, but they sure stink!)

Next we climbed up to the Lighthouse... We all made it up.

Earthquake!!

New Zealand lies right over a rather large fault line. This fault line cuts pretty much from top to bottom of the country and sometimes results in earthquakes. Earthquakes are a common life experience here. In my time here in New Zealand, I haven't been able to really experience one until the other night.

Now to be fair, I slept through a very small one while in Wellington and another time was in the car driving when one occurred too. Unless the earthquake is large on the rictor scale, you won't feel a thing if you are driving around. So now I am happy to report that I have felt my first earthquake.

We were at Jon's parents house where we had gone to visit, have dinner and chat for a while after church last Sunday. I had tried earlier to contact my mother to see how she had done with the Hurricane. We were in the living room talking, Jon and I about ready to leave for home when it happened.... The whole house shook - not massively though. It was a moderate earthquake. It did no damage to their house or the city and didn't shake anything off the walls. However, it did shake the house.

Never being in one before, it is just another reminder how amazing and powerful Mother Nature is. We are getting many reminders of this lately. Anyway, for those of you who are curious, the earthquake was about a 5.2. It happened on Sunday, Sept 14 2008 at apx. 9.25pm. It originated about 60 km southwest of Wanganui out in the ocean floor. We felt it around 9.30ish here in New Plymouth.

It was rather exciting for me, but I will admit that I do not think I would find a large scale earthquake all that exciting. That would be scary. (I am happy to report that it did not even scare me. Really I think I was just amazed and excited to know right away what it was.)

Hurricanes

I have been asked by a few people how my family has fared during Hurricane Ike. It never ceases to amaze me how wonderful and concerned everyone gets when something potentially disastrous is coming to town nor how wonderful everyone gets afterwards when they start to pick up the pieces. I would like you to know that my family has done just fine with this hurricane outside of losing a little power - both in Houston and Louisiana.

For those of you who know my family well, you will be happy to know that the bbq was up and going and Hurricane Ike was celebrated with a nice bbq brisket and probably some other meat too. For those of you who do not know my family, let us reminisce back to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita....

As you may remember, Hurricane Katrina sent masses from New Orleans to other states and cities in case something drastic was to happen. Indeed the amount of destruction wound up being large as the levees that hold out the storm failed in parts of the city and the pump system that pumped water out stalled as well - a huge problem since this beloved city lies below sea level. About 2000 people would lose their lives and others would lose their homes, their pets, other property, and many are still missing probably presumed dead. Most of my family from New Orleans left for this and went to nearby cities, or over to Houston where I lived. One of these being my grandmother.

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and the destruction mentioned happened. Without much time to recover, and no one being allowed back in New Orleans, a new Hurricane built up and started coming towards Houston. Houston at this time was housing many of the refugees from Hurricane Katrina. It would turn out that Hurricane Rita would not hit Houston directly, but that was not known at the time. For the record, while Rita did very little damage to Houston, it did cause damage along the Texas/Louisiana border.

Now, that is background... here is my family hours before Hurricane Rita is supposed to hit Houston or near it.... We had our swimsuits on - all of us, including my grandmother! - were out in the pool swimming and playing with the dog. We had the bbq going and the radio playing. (Who's thinking this isn't so smart? - We agree! We actually made that comment. However, it had not even started raining yet.)

I am very grateful that my family lives where it does in Houston. We are on the Northwest side of the city and because of that, have much less to fear from these Hurricanes. It does not mean we are impenetrable from them, just less likely to have the floods and have the damage to the same extent. When 1 million people were asked to leave Houston, I knew that my family would be part of the 3 million asked to stay. Knowing this though does not quite quell the worry until the storm has passed. I am also grateful that Hurricane Ike was not as bad as had been predicted.