Our friend just sent these to us.
Corner of the house showing 2nd floor, and front yard. Not too bad! [ETA: Some unlucky person's table washed up next to our fence.]
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Driveway and side of the house.
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2nd floor of the house (bedroom) and yard. Not much damage. ETA: Just noticed the fence is down. Oh well.
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The 1997 Honda Civic that DH bought for his 17-year-old daughter, who doesn't even have a driver's license yet. What a waste of money! The car was moved by the waves and turned around and it apparently smashed into the fence into the backyard.
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Our 2 decks in the back yard, and our boarded up windows. These face the bay so they would have taken the brunt of the storm. Minimal damage!
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More photos.
The driveway underneath the house. The Chevy is in one piece, although the water was over its top. Those bricks did not fly into it. You can see the water mark on the wall next to the downstairs door on the right. That door had a 3 inch gap under the screen, so I'm sure water got in.
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Side view of the deck. No visible damage. [edited to add: That tree on the right was loaded up with oranges. I guess they all blew off.]
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This is the end of our dead-end street with the bay/tidal pool. You can see the debris from boats, other houses, etc. washed up here. There is only our house and 1 other house on this street. The storm surge would have come right up here.
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The house catty-corner (sp?) from ours. It faces the bay/tidal pool. One of these cars is the neighbor's husband's Jaguar! Why he didn't take it with him, I don't know. [Edited to add: I just noticed their windows were not boarded. Amazing that they didn't break.]
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Not sure what this is. A side view of my 2 neighbor's houses that face the bay? You can see all the debris from either an unlucky neighbor's house or from an unlucky person's boat. (Several boats from the marina across the highway were thrown into our neighborhood.)
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Your poor Chevy. Man, that sucks fucking ASS. I'm so sorry.
And your DH's Jag....good lord, what a mess.
It looks like the stuff you had upstairs in your house should be okay, maybe just the cars got damage. I hope all your other stuff is okay!
The Jag is not ours. It's our neighbors'.
DH says we can restore the Chevy but it will be 10x as hard as before. sigh....
CF Scorpio Wrote:The Jag is not ours. It's our neighbors'.
DH says we can restore the Chevy but it will be 10x as hard as before. sigh....
Ooops! Wasn't reading carefully enough! Glad it's not your Jag, though!
A car guy will look at the Chevy as a challenge now. (Probably have more fun complaining about it.)
I don't get your neighbors leaving the Jag. It looks like they may have had some more issues as well on their home.
Overall, it doesn't look horrible. Bad, yes, but not what I would have been afraid of. I suppose the inside may be a different thing. Like you said, structure-wise, the house looks pretty good all things considering.
Well, thank your lucky stars. It definately could have been much worse. I hope the inside isn't too bad.
OMG thanks for the pics. It's good to see that the damage you sustained was minimal. Except for the Chevy. That sucks ass, for sure. But thank god the rest seems to be intact!!!
When do you get to go back?
Wow, the way those cars and dirt and stuff have been thrown around, it is a wonder the houses there look OK. I am glad your house is still standing. Good job with boarding the windows. I am sure you will see even more damage once you return home, but you have a home to return to - that is the important part.
CFS
for the messed up Chevy. But I am sure your DH will play the "Tim Taylor" Role and have it looking good in no time,lol
TG you have a house to come back to is right!
I saw loads of videos from places that had far worse damage then
what you showed us.
So, I guess my prayers were answered and that your home is still standing
& many thanks for the pix.
with the clean up process.
I know that will be a royal PITA.
Glad to hear from you. We were worried about you there. At least the damage we see here is "stuff" that can be insured and replaced.
My brother-in-law went there and shot a video. Several houses are demolished. A house was picked up and moved into the middle of the street. The Thai restaurant is nothing but a pancake. Someone's roof is in the middle of our neighbor's yard. Someone's shoe is inside of our Chevy.
He found Blackie sitting on our porch and fed him a burger.
WOOHOO! Blackie is OK! This kitty has 9 lives.
What great news!
Sounds like things are a real mess. How much water was there sloshing around? Sounds like quite a few feet to move cars around and even a house! I'm so glad your house is still up and has it's roof on.
Can you go home soon? You must be getting anxious.
Did you find your other cat?
Cats, I don't know how high the surge was where Scorp lives but our newspaper has several photo galleries on their main site.
go to
http://www.chron.com and scroll down to "photo galleries" near the middle of the page. The Sept. 12 "Ikes Brutal Arrival" gallery has several pictures of how high the water was in Galveston and other areas to give you some idea....
We returned to the area on Wed. It was unreal. Houses collapsed, houses in the middle of the street, debris everywhere. Cats were very freaked out.
The inside of the house was disgusting. The downstairs had been flooded with 5 feet of raw sewage from the sewage plant down the street. Everything was ruined except for the items on the top shelf. My entire record collection (over 1000 record albums and 12" singles) gone. All of our books -gone. All our papers and files - gone. All the letters and cards from friends I've been saving all these years - gone. All my posters from my days in the music industry - gone. 4 boxes of magazines (Rolling Stone, Spin, Option, etc.) from the 1980s and 1990s - gone. A trampoline and a boxing heavy bag, still in the boxes - ruined. All my VHS tapes, including the ones that had my student film projects on them (my only copies) destroyed. Washer and dryer - totaled. Winter coats, leather jackets, formal dresses - covered in sewage but maybe dry-cleanable, although it won't be cheap. Framed art prints and paintings ruined and glass all over the place. Computer monitors, mice and keyboards ruined. Computer disks ruined. My Pignose amp: ruined. Speakers ruined. Shelf full of birthday and xmas gifts for friends - destroyed. Managed to rescue a couple pieces of jewelry from there.
And did I mention the sewage smell? Awful. DH and his friend had the horrible job of ripping up the sewage-laden carpeting yesterday. I hope they don't get flesh-eating bacteria disease. Our insurance agent told me that someone in our area has died of it already.
We had some friends come over and help with the cleanup, and DH hired some Mexican workers who worked their asses off. (These guys have been hired by 2 other neighbors for debris clearing because they were so efficient.)
We have 4 friends coming over today to help. We have running water, and the power trucks drove by last night, so maybe we will have power today.
Still no sign of Blondie. I stopped at the animal shelter in San Marcos before I left. He was not there. I filled out a form in case he turns up but I'm not optimistic.
Orange Boy (the other stray) showed up the other day. I'm amazed that both stray/feral cats survived. I am very curious as to where they hid. Saw the ducks and geese yesterday. I guess they made it too. I have not seen our opossum family (the Fang Family). I hope they didn't drown.
Howie and Ginger are pretty freaked out. We decided to leave them outside at the house, because I didn't want to deal with moving them a 3rd time. I got Howie microchipped before we left San Marcos. I paid for a microchip for Ginger but they couldn't get it in her because she freaked out so much. She also managed to get her collar off yesterday, so I am worried that Animal Control might pick her up.
The 11-year-old boy who walks our dog lost his house. It's as flat as a pancake. The city won't let his family rebuild, due to some gas or sewer line or something. They are moving up near Dallas. I had totally forgotten his birthday (Wednesday) so I gave him $40.
(((CFS))) I'm so, so sorry. My heart was breaking as I read your post.
When will you be able to stay at your house again?
I'd like to put together a care package for you - can you PM me your address? I'll invite others to do the same in another thread.
Hugs - let us know if there's anything we can do.
Ugh.. that's awful. At least your house remains and is livable. I hope insurance helps with the cleaning and stuff? That's an awful and disgusting job- your DH is great for taking it on! (No way D would do that!)
I wish there was something else I could do to help If Kami wasn't so mean I could at least watch the cats for a while or something, it's not safe for them to be outside where we are, but Kami would really attack them and I'm worried someone would get hurt.
If you need anything please let me know- you know how to find me.
OMG, how awful, Scorp. I was so hoping your loss wouldn't be this bad. I'm really sorry.