TheBanyanTree: Ike's Moon - 2008/09/15

[Dale M. Parish]

20080915T2015

I should have been paid yesterday, but it doesn't make any difference- I
can't get online to pay any bills, and by the time I'd write checks,
there's been no mail delivery yet, so I don't know when I'd be able to
mail them.  So they'll just have to wait.  

On one of the call-in shows yesterday, I listened to some poor woman
vent that some collection agency called her and told her that they knew
from the news that there had been a storm here, but couldn't she send in
her payment now.  There are a lot of people here who have nothing-- no
money, no house, no credit, no gas if they have a car.  My cousin's
house in Bridge City had 3 meters of water *through* it-- washed in
the front windows and out the back before it got over the windows.
Cindy's brother's house had nearly two meters through it.  Ashley, one
of the girls who reportst to me at work lost the whole roof off her
house in Port Neches.  

The difference between Rita and Ike is that Rita was a dry, but windy
storm with the wind out of the north here, whereas Ike was not quite as
windy, but the winds were out of the south and it brought a four to five
meter storm surge with all the rain.  Those trees that survived Rita's
strong north winds were succeptible to Ike's south winds, and where the
roots were wet by the rain in advance of the wind, many of the survivors
uprooted in the other direction.  But there weren't near as many trees
left after Rita, so the wind damage isn't nearly as bad.  But the water
damage is many times worse.

One of the problems is that when the Gulf Of Mexico rises four meters
over the salt marsh behind the beach dunes, and there is a 160kph wind
to push it northward, there is little to stop it.  After those winds
subside and the river valley starts to drain, the level will eventually
fall below the level of the chennier ridges over which it swept in, and
it's got to all flow out the river channel, so it takes a lot longer to
go down after that point.  We've reached that point now.  

We had a lazy day today.  I cleaned a little in the yard in the morning.
Around noon, I got a call from Tofideus, one of my fellow employees
wanting to know if I could get into the PC Shop to get some parts for
them, but I don't have an access code for it.  Laurine, the other person
who has control of the codes, had given me access to the computer that
controls the access code during the panic move out of the building in
February-- I believe that I could give myself access to the PC Shop, but
it's a voilation of "segregation of duties" under company policy, and
Tofideus decided that he'd try to get one of the two other people who
had access to see if he could get the parts.

After lunch, I went back down to the shop and started gathering up all
the hi-cor (high corregation) sheet metal that had blown off the shop
and cleaned and stacked it.  Most of the nails had pulled through the
metal and could be found still in the purlins, but there were a lot of
nails in the metal that had pulled loose from the purlins and there are
a lot of nails loose on the wash rack and the aprons at the doors to the
shop.  I know there are no less nails out in the grass where we normally
drive around the building and am not looking forward to finding them
with the tractors and mowers over the next year or so.

On the way down to the shop, as I went over the overpass at 62 on IH10,
I noticed that the WhatABurger was open.  When Cindy called later, when
I mentioned it, I was informed in no uncertain terms that WhatABurger
was what she wanted for supper.  So I wrapped up early and loaded the
tractor onto the loboy and all my tools into the truck and headed back
to the WhatABurger to pick up supper.  I've never seen so many people in
the parking lot there, nor so many employees.  There was an 18-wheeler
unloading frozen crates into the back almost as fast as they were
pushing fast foot out the front.  There must have been 20 people working
in the kitchen-- there's usually four to six.  But the wait was quick,
and people were in good moods, and I was home soon enough. 

We unloaded the tractor, then dropped the loboy, and then used the
tractor to unload the drum of gas and drop it by the generator.  The
other drum is nearly empty-- I'll empty it tomorrow morning and put it
back in the truck.  If I'm called to the refinery for work tomorrow, I
may be able to pick up some there-- after Rita, they gave us all the gas
we needed for home generators, until some people started abusing the
privlidge and gas became available outside.  Cindy's brother, who owns a
gas distribution chain in Houston, warned her today that gas was going
to really get in short supply soon.  As if I didn't know, with our
refinery and Baytown's down, and also Valero, Chevron/Texaco in Port
Arthur and I hear a dozen smaller ones between Freeport and Lake
Charles. 

My old Anthropology prof is now in Tibet working with a Buddhist temple,
and emailed us that if we wanted to see how the place was in which she
was living now, to watch the movie "The Cup," which I bought used a
month ago.  We're going to watch it now and turn in early.  

Hugs,
Dale
--
Dale M. Parish
628 Parish Rd
Orange TX 77632
(409) 745-3899