Friday, October 10, 2014

Armageddon In Dallas

I haven't written a single post in all of October, and we're nearly half way into the month already!  So what in the world is going on around here? Well, in a nutshell... Armageddon-here in Dallas.

First of all, in case you haven't heard- EBOLA.  The hospital here in Dallas,where most of my doctors have their practice, is the now infamous Presbyterian Hospital. That's where the first victim, Thomas Eric Duncan, died of Ebola here in the US just the other day.  Hotchkiss Elementary, was also in the news since it's where at least one of the kids he came in contact with while he was highly contagious goes to school.  It's our neighborhood school and is just one street over from where Fermin, Ricky, Lucy and I live. And the Ivy Apartments, where Duncan's host family lived, and where he stayed before he was admitted to Presbyterian Hositpital, is only about one mile from our neighborhood.  All of that is just a little too close to home.  I'm so sad for Mr. Duncan and his family, and I hope no one else was infected. 

Additionally, late last week, we had a huge storm that rolled thru Dallas.  It only lasted about 15 minutes but it packed a huge punch.  I took this picture from my bedroom window during the storm...
Lots of large tree branches on top of our electric lines
That was just the beginning.  You might notice in the above photo, the power lines from our house got pulled down.  So of course, we were lost electricity.  FOR FOUR FREAKIN' DAYS!  During the storm, I actually got a little nervous and asked Fermin if we should get in the bathtub at some point.  Not to bathe, but just to get to a safe spot.  We didn't, but I sure did consider it, I think for the first time in my life.

This was our view from our front porch looking out, after the storm...
For a minute I sorta felt like we lived in the woods, just not quite how I've always imagined it!
As you might guess, we could look out, but couldn't GET out our front.  This is what it looked like if you were looking at our house...
Where's Kerri?
And this was our backyard, once we made it outside. Which, of course, called for a beer!  Even me, the very rare beer drinker.
Fermin, hangin' loose. 
Our neighborhood got hit pretty hard.  Our house certainly didn't get the worst of it.  Here's a shot of the house that had a tree, or at least a huge portion of a tree, fall on the roof.  Notice the concrete driveway too!!!  CRAZY.  There were at least of handful of houses that had a similar situation going on.  Oh no!!

I've since had a few tree services out to bid the clean up work on all of our trees.  I found out I have a very sick, dying tree in my backyard, and the experts seemed to be in wonder that it didn't fall.  And thank GOD it didn't fall... It would have pulled down ALL the electric lines in my alley, and it sits directly next to my gas line- Yikes.  So until I get that tree down, I can't sleep or leave the house and not worry that Lucy and Ricky are safe.
Our Little Storm Troopers, Lucy and Ricky
I've hired a crew to come out, but they can't get to me until Saturday or possibly Monday.  There's just so many people in bad shape around here!  And we have storms forecasted beginning tonight.  I'm usually fearless of thunderstorms and in fact, welcome them.  But for now, my outlook has changed a little.

But besides trees that will now look ridiculous, and dented gutters, we were very lucky.  And my fingers are crossed that we will remain lucky.  And that this isn't, in fact, Armegeddon.



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