Dispatches from Houston in the Aftermath of Hurricane Beryl
Who would have thought an approaching hurricane would have been the easy part?
Hurricanes are scary things. Their approach can knife fear down your spine, give your stomach that funny feeling you get when you ride a roller coaster, and cause you to lose sleep. I experienced all those things last weekend as Beryl—which had already devastated Jamaica—opted to head north to Houston.
The Hurricane Itself
The wife and I plus our two dogs and a cat went to bed on Sunday night expecting Beryl to arrive in the wee small hours of the morning. Storms are always scarier at night. We had spent the day prepping the house, staging our flashlights and camp lanterns, and hoping for the best. Our neighbor has a very large pine tree and I prayed that it would not fall and hit our house, their house, or the power lines.
I live in an older neighborhood, built in the early 1970s, with trees that are in their fifties. Around 2:30 am, I heard a thump. A limb in our front yard with a diameter of about 8-10 inches broke and fell across the street. I sighed, knowing exactly what I’d be doing in the morning after the storm passed.
The power went out Monday at 6:00 am. To be honest, it lasted longer than I expected. Normal work days for me have the coffee machine start at 4:45 am and I even had the thought that I should have set it. Looking out the window in the early dawn haze, I could see the wind whipping the branches around. I got a better look at that giant limb. Missed the neighbor’s car, mailbox, and my mailbox. Tree debris was everywhere. Branches from smaller trees were broken and hanging. It was scary. I found myself willing time to go faster so we could get through the storm, start the cleanup, and get Centerpoint’s workers out to bring up the power.
The Lack of Power
Late morning on Monday, most neighbors ventured outside and started cleaning up. I fully expected to get my chainsaw and cut up the tree, but a couple of guys with massive pickups and tow straps actually dragged that limp to the nearby baseball fields. Tres cool for me. Certainly made my job easier.
The rest of Monday was just cleanup. An 8-ft section of fence in our garden blew down so I propped it up and stabilized it. The tree debris I put in smaller piles that I’ll go back and tie together. The weather was mostly cloudy so the temperatures were not unbearable. And, to be honest, Monday night without power was remarkably mild, especially after a cold shower and the camp fans blowing on us.
Tuesday was a different story. Typical July-in-Houston weather returned and it “only” got into the lower 90s with a heat index of 103. Yay. Taking the wife’s warnings to heart, I didn’t do any physical activities or additional cleanup because I’d have no way of cooling down. I took a care package across town to our son who was ill so that ate up most of the day for me.
Not so the wife and pets. They stayed home. We learned that if you stay still, with cool washcloths on your forehead and neck, you can tolerate the warm air blowing in the rooms. Just like we did in the freeze of 2021, we sealed off most of the rooms with closed doors, drawn blinds, and towels on windows to keep out the sunlight. We discovered just how many dead zones our house has, causing us to frequently go outside to maybe get a signal. That evening, people and pets piled in our car and we drove around to get some AC and cell signals. Plus, I had to continue my Wordle streak. Priorities.
In all of the driving around, we were able to see how fortunate we were. Most of the houses near us had little damage other than downed limbs, but there were a few that were jaw dropping. Massive 30-in. diameter trees that just leaned over onto a house. Another massive tree that was split down the middle, one half blocking the street and the other on the house. It was visual evidence that as much as we humans try and tame nature, nature often wins.
Wednesday for me wasn’t bad. I drove to the office and worked in the AC all day. The wife and the pets didn’t. Neither did my parents who lost power to their house, but their neighbors had power. Just one example of the randomness of the power outages. After work, I went to check on them and bring them ice. Texas-based grocery chain H-E-B is on the ball, both with gas and ice. I made 6 ice runs in three days and saw 5 different brands of ice, some as far away as Mississippi.
The Cruel Tease
Thursday was another work day for me, but with my mind still thinking about Wednesday night’s hotter sleeping experience, I was ready to buy a generator. On the way home from work, I bought and filled two 5-gallon jugs of gas and was on the way to Lowe’s to get the generator when the wife called. Power was back! I bypassed Lowe’s, got home, unloaded the gas cans, and started to sigh with relief. The router was on but the cable and internet were still out.
Forty minutes after the power came on, it went off again. Five minutes after that, I was on the way to Lowe’s. Bought a 6500-watt generator that was packaged in a box so big it would not fit in my car. Me and the helper at the store had to take the pieces out of the box and put the separate components in the car just to get it home. That thing is heavy. Hea-vy!
We put the thing together, placed it in the backyard under an easy-up, filled it with gas, and fired it up. Props to the machine, it started on the first pull. We figured everything out and strung 3 extension cords into the art room which has a window AC unit. Three fans moved the air into the master bedroom and we closed the hall door. Don’t need to cool the house, just a couple of rooms. While we have power, we’re still only working with 6,500 watts so we’re judicious with what’s plugged in. We’re still using the camp lanterns.
Oh, as for TV? Well, I found my wife’s old, small, analog TV, old enough to have the two knobs. It’s only 65 watts and I hooked it up to an old digital antenna. Gotta love old tech.
Where We Stand Now: The New Normal
I’m writing this during my lunch hour on Friday. Still no power, and a big-ass rain storm is moving over the city. While it’ll cool off the temperatures, it’ll also slow repairs. As of this morning, Centerpoint has turned on the lights for over a million people who didn’t have it as of Monday. We are among the 800,000+ folks still in the dark. How long will it last? No one knows, and the company has not been as forthcoming with individual estimates as we 800,000 would like.
It’s odd how quickly we adjusted. Taking cold showers with a lantern set atop a stool which is set atop the bathroom counter. Shaving with cold water. Taking cold baths at night before bed and again in the morning. Taking a flashlight wherever you walk. Having zero TV or streaming to watch so passing the time playing games or reading. Cooking outside on the grill and staying outside as long as possible at night where it is “cooler”. Sleeping with no sheets and barely moving because if you do, you’ll feel the sweat break out on your forehead. Making an ice-and-gas run every morning before work to prep for the day.
Normally, the master is one of the hottest rooms in the house, but when we got it down to 81 last night, we were thrilled. Perspective. Like adding up the devices we want to run to make sure we don’t max out the generator. Perspective. Like knowing there are millions (billions?) of people in the world today who don’t have electricity to their houses or central air or fans and that’s normal for them. Perspective.
But perspective doesn’t cool a house or keep a fridge running. That takes infrastructure and equipment and manpower and money. The lights will come on again, and it’ll not be as fast as we want. But we, like so many others who already had generators and contingency plans, will be ready when the next thing hits. Because the next thing is going to hit. It will suck, but the Beryl Experience has taught us how to get ready, stay safe, adjust, and move on with life.