REPOST for Gabby Abby's Open Call: 

 

I live in southeast Texas, near Galveston and 50 yards from a tidal bayou that ultimately feeds into the Gulf of Mexico. Several years ago, we lost it everything in a  hurricane.  All of our belongings, including vehicles, were stenched in mud and mire.

 

Everything left was scooped up and hauled off by a crew of 5 men who arrived in the back of a pickup wielding shovels, hip boots and brawn.  The rest of our lives...floated down the bayou.

Twelve of us were stranded that year in an upstairs suite next door with 4 couples, 3 kids, a nursing newborn,  2 dawgs and a canary.  Our "hosts" kept elevating the boat securing it to the balcony, so we knew we'd survive. We were also blessed with electricity and a working WC upstairs, but downstairs... 

We watched the bayou water rise inside the house to 36" that stood for 36 hours. That stress factor made replenishing the Scotch paramount. Being an outstanding gopher, I was nominated to brave the stairs, wade in water waist high to cross the living room to the liquor cabinet. The "chickens" gaped breathlessly and in awe from the second story landing at my every step.  All it took was one foot on the floor to see that any movement whatsoever sloshed strong waves causing credenzas to crash into each other. 

The J&B, Pinch and Johnny Walker  Red were saved, but not the cabinet, which missed my head by an inch.

When Katrina hit in 2005, the trauma came in flashbacks harder than the storm.   Charities were thrilled to see me, day after day. I emptied the closets, the pantry and the garage ... trying to help somebody, anybody.... just.  get. those.  hurting.  people out of their misery and off the full frontal, round-the-clock news coverage.

Oh, how I would have loved to have seen George and all of  FEMA hoisted, huddling and terrified, in that swinging bucket.

Just a few weeks later, RITA pummeled a push, right toward us. Evacuate NOW, the mayor emailed. Leave NOW.  When my angel speaks, I listen. The obedient ones who waited for the official evacuation routes got stuck on the infamous I45 corridor leading from Galveston to Dallas. It took each each of them 48 arduous hours to eek less than 100 miles.

 Remember?

Our trip to Waco was a breeze with zero traffic only because we left early. My horror, however, was spending 5 days in two hotel rooms with a pubescent 15 y-o male, two geriatrics, a nearly dead dawg named Nicolette, my son's two min-pins -- and one crazy person; that would be me. 

Visualize in your mind the quality bonding time that went on inside that menagerie. Then multiply it by every room in the hotel, city and surrounding 200 miles.

Result upon return? Everything was in tact. We were saved...that time. You might ask: "What about IKE?"  Eh, not so much....

Today, here we are again, at the beginnning of the season. In a couple of weeks, warnings and fears will inundate us:  There will be nothing left and life will never be the same. Ever. Emails will fly, survival lists will plaster windshields, and Ozarka will triple-stock every aisle. Right beside the batteries.

Just today, the first foreboding email notification hit:

Here's how it goes:

We're about to enter the peak of the hurricane season in Texas. Any day now, you're going to turn on the TV and see an astute weather person pointing to some radar blob out in the Gulf of Mexico making two basic meteorological points:

      (1)  There is no need to panic.

      (2)  We could all be killed.

Half-way serious, but with a ho-hum air, I wanted to make sure my friend Dwight was prepared for a possible onslaught.  Here's what he said, which pretty much sums up how many of us feel, year after year after year of these killer warnings:

"OK. So... last week I take out of the closet a plastic tub with Hurricane food that we bought 3 years ago for the Big One.  Everything expired 2 years ago and was eaten by weevils. That garbage cost us over fifty bucks. Batteries don't work either, now.  I bought 20 gallons of Ozarka and kept it safely stored. Being stacked for three years on top of each other, gravity has taken its toll and they all started to leak. NEVER AGAIN."

"Yep. And put in your article, BR, all the idiots like me who shell out a hundred bucks for the portable TV, battery-operated.  His last forewarning:

"Carry 3 dogs and one cat with you," in cages.  In the car.  Make sure you evacuate all pets so they won't be roaming  helplessly and starving like they were by the thousands in New Orleans.

Upon arrival at an unknown vet 200 miles away:

"Did you bring their papers with you?"

"Hell no, I didn't."

"Sir, in order to make sure the current boarders in our clinic are not sick, we must update all vaccinations.

"COST to me: ONE THOUSAND FREAKING DOLLARS," also nonrecoverable by our darling, well... you know.

"I almost wish a big gust of wind would dispose of the air head TV guy standing in the storm."

....and swing them all up in the buckets. With George.