Final word on Rita?

What follows is a modified version of an email I sent to a friend who asked about my experience related to Rita. I covered a fair bit of what we saw and continue to go through, so I thought it would make a good summary for the blog. Hopefully this serves as a closing of this chapter. :)

The cleanup from Rita continues. Our house was spared any direct tree damage. Trees fell on all of the utility lines but they remained connected to the house, thus requiring replacement of weatherhead, service panel, and siding. More damage was done to the yard by removing the trees than from trees falling. Cutting, dropping, and dragging enormous tree branches and trunks from back yard to curb by hand and bobcat tractors has decimated about a fifth of the backyard, which was carefully landscaped before all this.

When I first came in to town, the sight from freeway was almost disappointing. Sure, some signs were down, lettering on businesses had blown off/out completely, and you saw a missing or damaged roof every once in a while, but the city looked mostly normal (if deserted). As soon as we turned off the main thoroughfare, into the neighborhoods, the sight of toppled trees, tarped roofs, and massive piles of accumulated stuff (mostly tree related) on the sides of the road was amazing. Plus we had to be very patient and creative to find a clear street to gain access to our house. At least one of the lanes had been cleared on all roads, but the thousands of utility trucks that had poured in from all over the country had priority on the streets. And oh the smell. Like ten times the most intense sunshine-baked forest smell you've ever experienced. Only as of a week ago did I stop noticing that smell, and that's when the majority of waiting roadside tree debris had finally been cleared. Various crews are still working daily around the city, clearing stuff, repairing utilities.

The majority of damage in Texas from Rita was related to fallen trees (storm surge and rain went along border and into Lake Charles area of Louisiana). Established neighborhoods around here tend to stand amidst glorious pines and oaks. The oaks lost limbs but the pines fell completely. Newer neighborhoods lack trees by design. Thus older neighborhoods were hit hardest by the storm while newer ones suffered only the inconvenience of several days of power outages and a city-wide boil-water alert once families were allowed to return.

Response to Rita by insurance companies, tree removal, roof repair and so on was pretty swift. Their presence was immediate once the city was opened, though getting anything actually done took a while. The sheer number of trees down made clearing them from roads a priority, and that's where city had to focus its energy initially. Electrical crews were the first utility people in town, each team traveling with its own cranes and tree-removal people for access to poles. They repaired the infrastructure in an orderly manner, but still it took several weeks before all the power poles were back standing and strung together. During much of this time the city was under an evacuation order and then a dusk-to-dawn curfew with very few opened businesses. Long lines awaited you at every open eatery, but the mood was positive.

The last utility task--getting the line from pole to house restrung--required interacting with our local electrical company, and that was a bottleneck. Line got restrung to pole, but we had to get electrician before restringing to house before power company would put us on list to come back and finish it all off. We only had power restored to our house last Friday (9 days ago). Once a house received power, the cable people would come through. Phone lines got restrung after electricity lines, but poorly or using damaged lines; the phone lines in our neighborhood will have to be redone completely according to the not-local SBC guys working behind the house this morning. The work crews have all been very friendly and informative.

Our house has been livable structurally from the start. A fair amount of tree debris had to be removed in order to get into the house/garage, but house itself is relatively unscathed (ripped roof shingles, dented roof vents, toppled antenna only). Many houses around here had big trees hit them, and in our neighborhood about every fourth house has some roof or building repair necessary as a result. You see only a few unlivable houses, though; most damage is roof/attic/localized. Our neighbor had a tree smack right down the middle of his house. He and his family can go in and out of the house quite safely, but it is not a livable situation and they are staying elsewhere. I've got pictures of some of our tree debris, film which I need to process still (it's a long to do list these days). I'll post a link on the blog by next weekend.

On the other side of us, the neighbors had comparable damage to our own (massive mess of a yard) but because they had a group of young chainsaw-wielding macho male relatives who defied the evacuation orders and common sense (they cleared all the fallen trees in yard and cut all the house's utility lines themselves), they got their other utility repair work done right away. They were able to be at the top of the list because they had everything cleared out already, first shot at the electrician, the hauling crews, and so on. I am totally not bitter about that--on the contrary it was an amusing Texas experience--but it's interesting to see how breaking the rules across the board was way more efficient. We did what we were told--leave town, don't come back until city is opened (though David officially snuck in to see house), survey utility damage but don't go cutting power/phone/cable lines tangled in fallen trees, submit insurance claim, contact various utilities to report extent of damage, check on FEMA aid, etc. David got a friend with a chainsaw to help him clear tree limbs once lines had all been severed. Calls to multiple electricians right away put us at bottom of a two-week long waiting list.

All of our fridge/freezer food was lost. When David snuck in, that was the one thing he took care of: emptying the stinky contents and placing them in double bags outside. David even pitched the bottle of white wine in there. The city's first order of business for citizens returning after evacuation order was lifted, was to set up drop off points just for food. Lots of people are pitching their refrigerators rather than cleaning them out, claiming it as a loss; I chose to wash our perfectly fine fridge rather than buy a new one (and get insurance to agree to pay for it). Insurance is a dicey financial business, and I'd rather not abuse it. We've listed the replacement cost of our food losses and will consider exactly what to claim once deductible is covered. Repairs take first priority with insurance.

The official response has been prety good. Local news stations posted sueful information daily to their websites (tv broadcasts were out for a while) and one local radio station became 24-hour hurricane response information. FEMA made their presence known right away. Alas, the implication was that everyone could get some emergency FEMA aid, just for displacement if nothing else. However, like many others, we are not eligible for FEMA because we have insurance. David submitted an emergency aid claim and was rejected. Fair enough, I suppose. Luckily, we have savings, and more luckily we had a place to stay in Houston (though not convenient for David when his work began again, albeit part-time). Lots of people stayed with friends, family, at hotels if they could find a room, or just came home and camped out. We keep getting told to keep receipts for tax purposes, that we can write those expenses off. But honestly, with all the other stuff we were hauling around and keeping track of, gas and meal receipts were not our highest priority.

As of now, we have massive static on phone lines, a damaged cyclone fence, and a minimally filled but sparkling clean refrigerator. We need to relandscape a large section of our backyard, need one-third of back of house re-sided because of utility damages, and will have our first face-to-face meeting with an insurance adjuster only this week.

An amusing sign of the hurricane: we waited over an hour for a table at IHOP last weekend, where they are still operating from a very limited menu as well as experiencing massive demand and ongoing problems with staffing. Most of the restaurants in town have "now hiring" signs posted. Another amusing sign: an SUV that was absolutely smashed from a fallen Jack in the Box sign still sits in the restaurant's parking lot. I think it should remain there as a remembrance.

All in all, it's been a learning experience. We were very lucky. The inconvenience to us is superficial and temporary. It continues to eat up our free time this fall, and has thrown my school-work schedule for a loop that I'm working very hard to overcome, but those are inconsequential when compared to losses to life that other disasters bring about. Because the area evacuated and storm changed strength and course slightly, significant losses were limited to tangibles. We had warning, David and I remind ourselves, and that is not always possible. On the flipside, the warning created anxiety where none might have been necessary.

The biggest lesson from all of this is more global, I hope. This hurricane season has underscored the need for preparedness to be a community mindset not just a household one. Work to ensure your own neighborhood and community have thought through how to deal with long term utility outages, evacuations, communications, staffing, and even mental health needs. Anxiety and disruption bring out the best and worst of people.