Lady Fish

[Kiwi Phil]

I probably missed the post, but I would like to know how everything turned out for you following your evacuation from the storm.
If you have posted details already, then maybe you could direct me to the thread.
Cheers
Phillip

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Lady Fish

If you go here: Ike Report - Boat Storage in Galveston burns in uncontrolled fire.

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=276995

... you will find some of the last information she posted on her current situation. Scroll down to the bottom.

Cheers

 

[Kiwi Phil]

Re: Lady Fish

Thank you....I just went there.

1. I wonder what the facts of her situation are now.

2. I also wonder if there were others from this board who suffered major damage.

Cheers
Phillip

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Lady Fish

i understand that she is working from home, as her office and mr ladyfish's offices were both destroyed. he is having to drive 90 miles to work.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Lady Fish

We are just now hearing from friends in the area. Some have just recently gotten electricity back, and have written letters to let us know they made it through. Some lost everything but their lives.

Up to now there is only one iboat member, that I spoke to often, that is still missing. I have tried to contact him, to check on his and his families situation, but no responses as of yet.

We will just have to see if he shows back up looking like a wet cat, or if he was just too busy to check the board or his mails. I hope it is the last of the two.

Cheers from Germany

 

[LadyFish]

Re: Lady Fish

This past weekend we finally moved back home after one month of being relocated from Hurricane Ike.

We are the only residents on our street to have power, actually in the entire section we live in. The debris trucks are very busy as I type this. It's a little surreal being here at night and the only lights in town. Its like a ghost town.

So much debris still on the streets and in the water. Some people haven't been down to do cleanup yet, its a sad sight.

We've been working hard the two of us, cleaning up all the debris on our property and have all utilities with the exception of TV and Internet. I am using my work laptop and aircard since my office was destroyed, so I'm working from home.

Mr. LF's office was destroyed as well and he is having to commute about 90+ miles a day to work.

At least we have jobs and we're home. Inside the house life is good. Outside, well, its a depressing, torn up, mess of a dump. We are fighting with our insurance adjusters trying to get them to give us estimates. It would be nice to start rebuilding what we lost.

Glad to be back home nonetheless, at least we have some sense of control.

Last evening a couple more people moved back. I love the sound of generators all night long. LOL Regardless, I'm happy to see repairs being made and people returning even without power. We ended up capping the electric on the lower level of the house off, fixed the plumbing, got our permits, hired an electrician to removed the meter which was submerged, got it all inspected by the City and called the power company for a new meter and hook up. Everything is a 4 step process it seems.

They've been cleaning up the debris during the day. Our street is a dead end and the big trucks can't get down it so the little fork lifts come speeding down the street making a pile in the middle of it and pushing it all the way to the end. It sure makes a mess of leftover glass and nails in the street but I'm so glad to see the debris piles go away. As soon as they go away another is stacked up. A sign of progress nonetheless. At least the streets are somewhat passable now.

It'll be along time before things are back to normal. Even the birds havne't returned yet. A few seagulls is about it. We live close to a bird sanctuary and the Rosetta Spoonbills, sandhill cranes and blue and green herons aren't here. This is also the time of year my hummingbird feeder is the busiest place in town and I haven't seen even one.

You have to realize tha saltwater does a job on anything green. The palm trees still have green on them but everything else is brown and crispy. I'm not sure how much of the landscape will return. We are having some rain this morning which will help dilute the saltwater from the soil. It all takes time. I don't plan on doing anything but prepping the soil until spring.

Many of our neighbor's did not fair well. Some are moving out forever so its not just the material and financial loss, its the sense of community that once was. I'm sure in time, the rest of our little community will return and rebuild but right now its mostly cleanup and only a handful of people have returned to live. Further up the island in the City of Galveston, much of the same although most everyone has power than can have power there. Most businesses are still closed and need restoration and some businesses along the seawall were completely washed away.

As you drive westward down the island toward and past Jamaica Beach where we live there are entire rows of houses along the beach that have disappeared. As you look around you see houses so destroyed they will have to be demolished.On a good note, the Gulf has been the most beautiful emerald green since the storm.

There are still 137 missing people from the island yet to be found after the storm. They are searching for them in other counties further up the bay.

This has been an exhausting and emotional experience for everyone who has been affected. However, this little island survived a catatrosphic storm before and came back strong.....it will again. The overall attitude of us islanders is, we're not going to let a little thing like a major catastrophy get us down. At least not for long.

Thanks for your thoughts and concerns, it really means a lot to us y'all.

 

[levittownnick]

Re: Lady Fish

You and Mr. Ladyfish are strong and courageous people. God bless.

 

[Carphunter]

Re: Lady Fish

Hang in there LF, you certainly have the right attitude. At least your seeing progress, thats a start.
Were still cleaning up from the hurricane all the way up here in Indiana, so I can only imagine the devestation where you are at.
Stay in good spirits, and know you and yours remain in our prayers.​

 

[LadyFish]

Re: Lady Fish

Thanks guys.

I'm learning to love the smell of exhaust fumes in the morning. It smells like recovery.

 

[ehenry]

Re: Lady Fish

Good to hear from you , MS LadyFish ! Glad to hear you and Mr LF are back on your home turf. It does sound as if yall fared WAY better than most.

Yall take care.....keep us posted.

 

[LadyFish]

Re: Lady Fish

Thanks Nick, Carp & ehenry.

We still need a whole roof replacement and rebuild of our downstairs, deck and dock but yes we did fare better than many who are still out of their homes. My heart goes out to them.

 

[stevenw00]

Re: Lady Fish

Do you have any "before/after" pics, and would you mind sharing?
I'm sorry to hear about your situation, but it sounds like you are holding strong and pulling through. Congrats to you for that!

 

[oops!]

Re: Lady Fish

replacing a deck and dock?

sounds like an i boats work party to me

 

[oops!]

Re: Lady Fish

HA....we all could invade the hideout on the way down from up north

how many "o" them cee-gars ya got jb?

 

[kenimpzoom]

Re: Lady Fish

Glad your house is one of the rebuildables and yall are fine.

Good luck.

Ken

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Lady Fish

LF, reading your post about your situation was very much a flashback to three years ago for me. It also makes me want to tell you that I understand your feelings and views completely.

The need to come home was strong for me too. In the days when I didn't know if my house had survived, I think I just felt kind of numb. Looking at the video images on the television of many areas near where I lived, suggested that my chances of having an intact house, even if it had not flooded, were pretty slim. Then came a call on my Nextel Direct Connect - a friend who had me programmed into his phone had passed by my home on the way to his. He said something (my memory is fading now) along the lines of, "your house is still intact, but your shingles are all over the yard, your front porch is gone, and one corner of the roof has a tree on it." Funny how that simple statement was incredibly reassuring, because it meant that I had something to go home to.

I also related to the feeling of feeling like you are on an island of light in a sea of darkness. I came home with my van absolutley stuffed with supplies. I had enough non-perishable food to last for two months, water, camp stove, a generator, gasoline, etc. All of this was in the van, on top of the van, and hanging off of the back of it, on a trailer hitch carrier. Once all of the supplies were put away and the house was wired up to run off of the generator, I was reasonably comfortable, but I was still living in the midst of destruction and darkness. Eventually, like you, my neighbors began to appear and the lone buzz of my generator became sort of a chorus of Briggs & Stratton motors.

I did sort of the same thing that your husband is doing for work, but didn't drive every day. For me, it was a weekly commute to NW Louisiana - about 350 miles every Sunday afternoon and 350 miles home every Friday evening. One tip I will give you is to watch for fatigue with this commute. It really fools you because it doesn't seem so bad at first. After awhile, though, you begin to feel like a rat on a treadmill and it just gets harder and harder to keep doing it. While I don't know your husband's work situation, one thing that we did at my job (I was fortunate enough to report directly to the COO, so I was able t influence the decision), was to insist that all of our employees take a long weekend once a month. We did that simply because we could see the fatigue setting in and flet it was better to lose ssome work time to "R&R, rather than to lose a great deal more productivity through "burnout."

One thing that you will also experience, is the need to have your tires patched and/or replaced frequently. There will be roofing nails and other types of fasteners all over the place, from the complete or partial demolition of homes. Add to those, all sorts of debris on the roads from the trucks hauling it all. They are supposed to have covers on the dump bodies, but probably won't until your local and state PD start to write tickets on a mass scale. The haulers get paid for their work by the cubic yard, so they tend to cut corners to make more loads per day. I was constantly dodging sheetrock, studs and joists, mattresses, etc. for about a year or so after Katrina.

Living under an approximation of martial law was another thing that took some getting used to. I used to call the New Orleans metro area "Bagdad without the bombs" (IEDs) because there was so much military here. There were soldiers with M16s hanging from their shoulders, humvees, trucks and helicopters everywhere. With the helicopters, it wasn't so much that we saw them ocassionally, it was more that they flew in flights of two and three, for months. It was as if they were off to some combat mission somewhere. In the context of typical American life, this was just so out of place to me - on one hand, I so appreciated what these people were doing, but on the other, I just wanted them to be gone because that would mean life was normal again.

Between rebuilding your house, holding your business together and dealing with everything else going on in your life, you are going to be a busy person. In a way, though, that is good because it both gives you a mission and doesn't give you time to get caught up in the enormity of the task. I found that you just get in automatic mode and do what has to be done. That said, as often as you can, take a breather with your husband and just get out of town for a day or two. I know this sounds like obvious common sense, but it gets easy to tell yourself that you have too much to do and you can't.

We are alll pulling for you and have you in our thoughts.

 

[LadyFish]

Re: Lady Fish

Jay, thank you for your comforting words. You know exactly what its like.

Someone said to me the other day, "you shouldn't feel bad, a lot of people had it worse than you did, at least you have your house." Those words upset me. Of course I felt a sense of guilt for talking about our situation when I know so many are worse off than us, and trust me my heart goes out to each and every one of them, but the fact remains that with the exception of the structure itself we do suffer many of the same emotions and sense of loss. We all cry the same tears.

Just like everyone else, immediately after the storm we had no information about our home for at least a week (the hardest time for us), we were displaced for a month, our entire community is destroyed, we are surrounded by devestation, businesses are gone, debris piles 25' high everywhere, streets nearly impassable, no offices to go to. We all went through this.

And yes, you do feel guilty for not losing as much as your neighbors and friends. However, truth is, that everyone affected by a storm of this nature suffers in some way. It's not just about your physical property.

We help our neighbors who have lost more, clean up, tear out, and do what needs to be done. I cook a hot meal for them, and opened up our house to them for anything they need like laundry, showers, tools, or just a cool place to sit and chat awhile or somedays just a hug. Neighbors become real close at a time like this. We all need eachother during this recovery and will for quite some time.

I think its wrong for others to lay a guilt trip on those who didn't lose as much, we all lost something, and we've all been affected financially and emotionally. I will not feel bad, about feeling bad. Jay, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about since your situation was very similar.

Anyway, recovery is more than nailing up 2x4's and reconstructing your walls, its as much mental as it is physical and takes time. Every day that a debris pile disappears, another house gets power, another family moves back into the neighborhood, people reunite after being apart for so long, lives are slowly being rebuilt, thats recovery.
----------------------------
Steven, I can't get my pictures to post up just yet but this is a good link to before and after pictures of the island.

http://www.tpicks.com/pictures people have sent me.html

---------------------------

Ken, you've been here, you would not recognize the place. Thank you for your kind words.

-----------------------------

Oops. I'll buy the beer.

 

[oops!]

Re: Lady Fish

5 years ago our city was allmost destroyed by a fire storm.....for a week we saw the fire sweeping towards a section of our city that had some exclusive homes.

it was so bad ....one morning, the prime minister (equivelent of your president) came to our city to inspect the damage so far...at that time.
we asked him to call in the big martin marrs water bombers....(really huge ones, biggest in the world, they are stationed less than one hour away by air) at that time there were five small sized bombers...and three helecopters working the fire........we (the citizens...at a metting he held at a local comunity hall) informed him....."every day at 5pm a 30 mph wind sweeps down the lake towards our city, it lasts for 2 hours" ...(its really weird....you can allmost set your watch by it)......we told him that it was so dry, and with the wind, our outer subdivisions would be threatend.......he was telling us "dont worry" as ashes were falling on his limo like snowflakes.
he didnt call the bombers in.....

at 6 pm that evening, our city evacuated 60,000 people from there homes, at that time our city had a population of 120,000.

the firestorm, fueled by the evening wind, engulfed a five mile section of the city in just a few hours......it was like someone had poured gasoline on a dried christmas tree....it went up that fast.....
one after another in rapid sucession, pine trees were exploding in flames just like a book of matches that has had a corner lit.

as the people were fleeing from the fire, towards the center of the city.....in there rear view mirrors, they could see the fires engulfing the area where there homes were.
i stood beside my friend peter as we watched the fire sweep across an area where his home was. (kettel valley)....he just turned to his wife and said, its gone. (he was right)

we lost 252 homes, with many many more damaged, but repairable.
the entire city had smoke damage in each and every house hold.

i have never....ever seen a human out reach like that before, people were opening there homes to total strangers....every man woman and child was thinking not of them selves....but of how they could help others....

from the 6 year old little girls that baked cookies for the huge crews of fire fighters, young boys with chain saws, creating a fire break so the far side of the city would be spared. to people that opened huge wharehouses and stored peoples items (that they actually got out before hand)


today, the animals have returned to the area. the plants and trees are in beautful color. in the summer, wild flowers were in full bloom.
the homes are rebuilt, and entire new subdivisons have sprung up in the area. even as i write this, i can look out the front window of my store, and see the mountain range, and all the new life that has sprung from the disaster.
to any one that was here during the fires, and saw the aftermath of the subdivisons that were burnt to the ground, we now look at the areas and think of them as a monument to the spirit of our city. a reminder of the great caring for other people that we didnt realize until we went thru that.

mr and mrs fish..kenzipoom...(and all who were affected by the storm)..i told you all this because of the above paragraph.
you are in the cleanup stage, then comes the rebuild stage.
thru it all......there are hard times. but there is a light at the end of the tunnel....and its a bright one........hang in there

 

[LadyFish]

Re: Lady Fish

Wow oops, thanks for sharing.

Disasters do have a way of bringing people closer together and forces them to reprioritize their lives. Thats the good that rises out of the ashes.

 

[JB]

Re: Lady Fish

I can't say how much I admire your attitude, LF, and that of others here who suffered through similar disasters.

With all the opportunity, and even encouragement, to go into "poor me" mode you all wept a bit and hurt a lot but did not back down and ask to be rescued. You just started digging in to restore your lives.

You all have an enthusiastic cheering section here at The Hideout.

You go, girl.