“What Hurricane?”

We were in our Kangaroo Island paradise. Four days without internet or cell-phones. I was talking with a local who asked me where I was from.

“Oklahoma,” I said.

“Where’s that?,” she asked.

“On top of Texas.”

“Is Oklahoma being hit by the hurricane?”

“Hurricane,” I replied. “What hurricane?”

She said that a friend of hers was in Texas–she couldn’t remember where, Houston? Austin?–who contacted her, saying she was being evacuated.

There were two TVs in the “holiday house” we rented and one of them worked, picking up the Adelaide stations over the air. So we waited for the nightly news. (Remember having to do that?) We saw that Houston was getting hammered.

My brother and sister-in-law live in the Houston area! So does my niece and her family! My son-in-law’s parents live near Corpus Christi!

It was Sunday night on Kangaroo Island, but 2:00 a.m. Central Time in the United States. So I waited the next morning, borrowed a phone, and called to see how everybody was.

I learned that each of those families has stayed, riding out the hurricane. My brother claims that where he lives is “high and dry,” in no danger of flooding. Same with my niece. But he had just lost power. How long might that last? No one can say. I would be long gone.

My son-in-law’s parents live south of Corpus Christi. The hurricane hit land north of that city. So they are reportedly OK.

But Hurricane Harvey, from what I am reading, developed so fast! It took only 56 hours to develop from an unnamed storm to a hurricane, jumping from a measly Category 1 on Friday morning to a Category 4 by evening. And it keeps lingering. And reforming.

They are saying that the property damage might match that of Hurricane Katrina.

And it’s still raining! In some places, Texas might get 50 inches of rain!

Here are some updates.

Were any of you affected? Can you give us a report? (As if you have internet.)

At any rate, let us join in prayer for the victims of Hurricane Harvey. And let us chip in for disaster relief. A good way to do that can be found here.

We are obviously back in Adelaide from our island idyll. We have the rest of the week here and will fly back on Saturday. I’ll resume blogging in earnest once I get caught up, hopefully tomorrow.

Photo of Hurricane Harvey from NASA satellite, Public Domain, via Wikipedia Commons