We interrupt this vacation to bring you a hurricane...

TP and I left on our last big vacation before the little one arrives (more about that later). While leaving hurricane Gustav was bearing down on the gulf coast. We watched anxiously as first Gustav came and went, then Hannah, which posed no threat, then Ivan formed. At first it appeared Ivan was heading south so we weren't overly concerned, he then quickly turned and headed for Texas, we quickly changed out vacation plans and headed home.

I was like something out of the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". We left Barcelona and flew to Newark, hoping to beat the storm before the airports closed. We had a backup plan of staying over in NY for a couple of days if necessary, so we made hotel arrangements. All that changed when we arrived in Newark and were told they couldn't get us into Houston until Monday evening at the earliest. The airline did offer us a flight to San Antonio instead, we accepted, cancelled our hotel reservations and started calling friends in San Antonio. Our friends were gracious enough to pick us up at the airport Friday evening (we arrived after 11 pm) by the time we got settled in at their place we had been traveling almost 24 hours (with the lay over in Newark). Early Saturday we called around and found a rental company with an SUV. We spent much of the am running from store to store looking for supplies, generator (check) bottled water (check) food (check) ammo (we have that already) crap... we forgot gas for the generator so gas cans (check) after visiting 4 - 5 different stores (some of them twice) we headed for Houston.

We passed National guard units, FEMA convoys and even HEB had a disaster relief convoy on the way. The outpouring of support was really staggering, not only from agencies, but from our friends in general. An overwhelming amount of phone calls and text messages and offers to assist in so many ways - which goes back to my previous post about how friends are many times "family".

We arrived home, and again, thanks to good friends all of our outdoor furniture had been moved indoors and the house prepared. We found our fence and pool cabana in a pile of rubble, no electricity (thank goodness for the generator) and generally a messed up neighborhood. We count ourselves very lucky in all of this considering how much others lost and are still struggling to recover.

Through all of this the community has been wonderful. Houston (and Texas) has shown what a real community is. Instead of standing around waiting for someone to come help them, neighbors have been helping neighbors, clean up has begun, not by the city or the state, but by families and neighbors, cleaning up the streets so power trucks can get in, helping neighbors clean up their yards, lending supplies when needed.

Sometimes, things like this can be a good thing.