Welcome to our coastal living world during hurricane season. We live on the Texas Gulf Coast, and our backyard is a canal leading to Galveston Bay. All of our time this week has been spent preparing for the potential hurricanes Marco and Laura.
Here are a few highlights from our last few days.
Thursday morning, August 20. Today is the day we planned to take our RV on a long meandering trip to South Dakota to meet my sisters from Wisconsin and Oklahoma for a grand vacation. We know it is the height of our hurricane season, but we’d hoped to squeeze this trip in between potential storms.
Steve and I thought that if we kept a close eye on our local weather, at the first sign of a storm, we could head back home. It sounds great, but we cannot leave now with storms already on their way. We canceled the trip!
Only in Texas would brisket be considered hurricane supplies!
Friday morning, August 21. We are sitting outside on the boathouse deck this early morning, drinking coffee and discussing our plan of attack for the probable, maybe, looks likely but not certain, category 1 or 2 hurricane with a possible, but not known or certain, storm surge of 2-4, 4-6, 8-10 feet, more or less. Sounds definite, huh?
Preparations started this way. We took the boat out of the water and drove it, behind the RV, with me following in my car, to our terrific and generous friends’ property 100 miles north, in Livingston. Two items checked off the list!
Sunday, August 23. We learned, from the news, that Marco would be taking a northerly path and dropping a lot of rain in the Livingston area. Steve decided we needed to go retrieve the extremely heavy RV before it ruined our friend’s beautiful lawn it was parked on and before we were unable to move it for weeks because of the soft ground and expected heavy rain.
We returned home with the RV but left the boat and trailer in Livingston.
Monday, August 24. e are in full-blown hurricane prep mode, moving everything possible from downstairs, decks, and garages, to upstairs — in the house. ll vehicles have to find a new home, and our grandson’s small boat and trailer have to be moved to his home.
The kayaks! We forgot about the kayaks! All patio furniture outside and many plants have to be moved also. Steve’s tools must be moved offsite. That may be very necessary for the following weeks.
Anything that could potentially become a projectile in high winds, or be carried off or dumped in the canal during high winds or floods, must be moved or secured.
WHY have we been so wishy-washy, indecisive, and slow to act? Meteorologists cannot determine Laura’s path until she passes over Cuba and is in open water again.
We have to make all possible preparations even though all may be totally unnecessary and we hesitate a bit to get this process started, even though we know it is necessary. This could very well be much ado about nothing, but…
We do have a hurricane preparedness checklist and an evacuation plan, always, of course. If you need one, check your local weather television or radio station online, where one will be posted. We are always as prepared as anyone can be, whether we are planning to stay home or must evacuate.
As part of our preparations, we have to move a lot of stuff (we have too much stuff) from downstairs to upstairs and from our house to someone else’s house. est as we can be, though, we’re always ready.
This time around, we are fortunate in that our RV had already been loaded with supplies for our planned 2-3 week trip to South Dakota. We have temporary homes for our other vehicles, and today will begin moving all garage, deck, patio items that we possibly can, from downstairs and into the house upstairs.
After our home is comfortably secure, we will drive off into the western sunset with our pets to roam around West Texas a few days, seeing what we can see. We will return after the rain, and whatever else has dissipated.
Our grandson, Alex, helping move the golf cart
Soon we will be loading our pets and us into the RV and will head out in our Texas world to try and create a new adventure this week. We hope and expect that when we return, our home will still be here in one piece.
Steve and I have gone through this drill many many times in 25+ years. Yes, it does get old, but we do love living where we live and as long as we live here we have to accept the trauma and drama of each hurricane season.
Please take a look at past posts of adventures we have had at https://www.alwayswanttogo.com and see my hurricane post, Where did we go for our hurricane evacuation?
Marco and Laura, the Gulf Coast’s least favorite couple. 🙂
Seriously though, Laura looks bad. I’m 50 miles inland. If you still need to move some stuff, you are welcome to bring it here.
You are the best! Thank you so much for your offer but we’ve got it sorted, rather Steve has it sorted and everything has a temporary home. It is very frustrating that this track isn’t locked in. It looks like we’re going to a lot of trouble for nothing. BUT, what if we aren’t? Thank you.