After Rita

Luckily Rita didn't hang around as we were first told would happen. The sun is shining and things are drying out. Many are still without power and all roads east of us heading south are still closed to traffic. Nobody can go in or out. During the storm, I had to work at the hospital from Friday at 7pm to Saturday 7am. The hospital was in emergency mode. After my shift, I went home around 7:30 a.m. Little did I know the eye of the storm would be passing our house within 30 minutes. The hurricane was moving so fast. A few days ago they thought it wouldn't get to our area until late afternoon or early evening. Anyway, power was out in our neighborhood. Driving home I didn't think the wind felt that strong. When I got out of the car, I could really feel it. I got inside and Page was awake. She took me to the backdoor to show me how the wind knocked down half of the fence in the backyard. As we were by the backdoor looking outside we hear this loud CRACK! and we see this huge tree falling, heading right for us. We jumped back so fast. I just knew it was coming through the house. To our good fortune, only the top branches landed on the house. However, the tree did knock down more of the fence and destroyed our wooden deck. (see pictures below). From that point, the wind was getting stronger and stronger. The trees were all getting whipped around. All of a sudden we hear a knock on our back door. It's Rick, our neighbor who lives behind us. He informs us that our vent fans on the roof are about to fly off and water will be coming into our house. He asked if we had a ladder. We don't! He ran and got his and climbed our roof with winds blowing 75 miles an hour and rain blowing sideways. During the peak of the hurricane we are putting plastic bags on our vent openings on the roof! I was soaked to the skin. For the next few hours we just rode out the storm in our house.

Sunday- We got a call from our Bishop around 10 am. He wanted Sean to come up to church for a special sacrament meeting at 11 am for the evacuees. We had cancelled services, but he felt the evacuees seeking shelter in our church needed the sacrament. The majority of them were from a Ward in the Beumont Stake- one of the hardest hit areas. When Sean and I got there, we were amazed to see over 100 evacuees. They were all in the chapel ready for Sacrament meeting. Electricity was only working in 1/3 of the building. No air conditioning! And it got to 100 degrees Sunday. Everyone was in jeans and t-shirts. It smelled like a locker room. But the spirit was so strong. A Patriarch from their stake was among them and he talked about repentence and keeping covenants. He also talked about the Book of Mormon. Then a woman sang accapella and bore a strong testimony. Our Bishop closed the meeting with some comments. 5 non-members came up and asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon and said their church never helped them as much as we did. Each family had a classroom to use as a makeshift bedroom. The Relief Society room was the dining room. The church has been in contact with our Bishop and Saturday afternoon brought in a truckload of food and supplies.

Later that afternoon Page and I took over some fans from our house to the church becuase, like I said, there is no air conditioning and it was hot. The people were very grateful. After that, I went to help serve dinner with other members of the Ward to people in shelters. We fed about 200 people. And most of those were from New Orleans, here from the Katrina Hurricane disaster. We are still helping those people too. We have so many evacuees in our city, that the population has doubled to about 110,000. There is no gas to be found anywhere in the area and food shelves are scarce, but somehow we are all pulling together to make it work. Despite all the criticism you hear on TV, I have seen government, red cross, churches and everyday citizens all pull together in helping people in need, with no care if the person is black, white, red or yellow. Now the clean up begins.......