Some Pictures of Galveston

Hi,

Chris put together some pictures of Galveston from his trips there. You can click on the "START SLIDE SHOW" to view the pictures larger and as a slide show. He did his best to label the pictures so they would mean something to everyone. He has more to come later.

The website is:

(CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW)

http://web.mac.com/chris.scm

He is back on his way to Galveston today to move into the house. The bunnies stay in a safe environment with his Mom and Dad until electricity and niceties are restored to 1407.

Unfortunately we were very premature in saying that our house had not flooded. Chris has discovered that 2/3 of the house had about 3" of water in it. Not as much as our neighbors, by far, but this has changed the picture considerably. He will have to scrub all the floors with bleach solution to kill the silver HARRY POTTER "unicorn blood" looking fungus. Also there is mold growing everywhere. He will have to remove the molding at the bottom of every wall in every room to check the sheet rock and probably remove the sheetrock about 1 foot above to wet mark. He will also have to spray down the damp dovetail walls. Our house does not have stud wall construction. So he can't get inside the walls. Work-wise this means that EVERY piece of furniture in EVERY room must be moved out and the room inspected, cleaned and then restored. All of this by Chris. He really is not in the shape to do this by himself, but what choice do we have?  He will try to clean the floors with wood soap, but they will probably have to be sanded and refinished. The surge also displaced a large number of sewer pipes under the house. The electrical circuit box has to be replaced because it was submerged for 8 hours. All of the wiring in the house was submerged so it will have to be replaced. Our TV cable wiring and ethernet network will have to be replaced. Phone wires under the house will have to be replaced. All the Ike slime under the house (about 1 foot of yucky mud/sewage) will have to be dug out. It smells like a sewer under there. The central air conditioner unit has to be replaced. It was under water for about 8 hours. The roof leaks and was severely de-granulated and de-shingled, it will have to be replaced. Our bedroom ceiling needs to be re-sheetrocked because of leakage. We lost every tree, bush, shrub and all of the grass on the property. Insurance will NOT pay for landscaping. Our back yard fence was destroyed, it will have to be replaced. We lost two computers, a color laser printer, medical textbooks, clothes, shoes, bags, irreplaceable photos from my Grandmother, Nanny. (I did not mean to imply we lost Nanny, we lost her three years ago...) And, of course, we lost our refrigerator that Chris and Paul described as smelling of 'liquid cadaver.' Chris would know about this, but how Paul knows the smell, I am not so sure. Was he really in the Army all those years or are all those unsolved serial killings in the west coast somehow related to a bespectacled, short-haired man with a penchant for poetry?

We really are blessed compared to MANY of the people in Galveston county. Bolivar Peninsula is wiped of the face of the earth. The West End of the Island is really no more. Those still standing will probably be reclaimed because Ike took so much beach that they now stand on public land. This is a no-no in the state of Texas that calls for immediate demolition and most of the times they do not even pay the owners for their land. "This land is Texas, the great, great land of Texas!!!!"

We are trying not to be to pessimistic. The loss of belongings is not hard, it is the work that Chris is going to have to put in to try and get the house livable again. He is 40 now and a VERY old man.... ;)

Safe driving today old-man...   I miss you...

His FEMA hotel has expired. FEMA turned us down for the generator that they promised they would pay for so we have to appeal.  So much for George W. Bush's promise to do everything possible to help the people of Galveston rebuild. Different city, same story. New Orleans, we hear your cries across the swamps and bayous.

Selena