I'm baaaaaaaccckkk!
5 1/2 days with no power and no cable, sweltering heat and plenty of work. We just got our electricity and cable back on an hour ago. Thanks Entergy!!!!!!!! Some people are griping about the power loss but I saw all the poles and lines down and I am amazed that we got power back this soon.
Gustav was much easier on the New Orleans area than Katrina was only doing about 1% as much physical damage. But 1% of $100,000,000,000 damage is still $1,000,000,000 damage and that was still a big storm but luckily no flooding.
My home and buildings got no damage but I have a bunch of trees and limbs down and I have been cleaning up this mess for the last 5 days in the heat. I lost my best pecan tree and I have a video of it as it was just going down. It hit the ground just as my video ended.
I am proud of our new governor as he seems to have a grip on the situation and things went very smoothly under his administration. (OOOPS!! sorry about the political speech)
There is a lot of wind damage in my area but it is mostly confined to outbuildings, sheds, additions and structures that were added without building permits. I know I will get a bunch of criticism with this statement but it seems like the building code and permits are for our own good in this area because just about everything built to code held up well and all the little add-ons done without permits had a fair amount of damage. And when these little sheds blow down and hit our houses it causes us even more damage.
I have almost enough time to clean up the trees that are down in my back pasture before Ike comes to visit and I hope he is a little kinder to us than Gustav was but I have to admit I am worried. I am getting a little too old to have hurricanes hit me more than once every 20 years and frankly, don't know how much more I can take. I worked most of my life to get this piece of property that I love and I surely don't want to ever have to move again but it is tough to live in an area where you can't even get decent insurance to cover your losses and where you constantly have to worry about the safety of your family and animals. It's hard to believe that we had no damage between Betsy in 1965 and Katrina in 2005 and these 40 hurricane-free years made it seem like this area would be safe for the rest of my life anyway. Oh well, at least I don't have to worry about blizzards, earthquakes, wildfires, droughts or being bored to death.
Now to get back on my tractor and do some more cleaning up..........
See ya!
YouTube - Gustav takes out my pecan tree
