Sept. 23, 9:58am -- replying to a friend in Alabama:
We're outta here.  Going to my parents' place in Woodville, an hour north of Beaumont.  We'll get rain and wind but no flooding.  Caron's folks are coming too.  All I have left to do is pack the computers, shower, get the cats and dogs, and go.

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So we packed all the essentials, keepsakes, meaningful stuff, left and hoped for the best for the house.  I took a picture of the house as we were leaving Friday about 1pm, the sky was dark and gloomy, slight breezes.  The man across the street was staying, our neighbor couldn't convince him to come with him.  My neighbor took his big dog Tiger, he was going to a friend's house in Lake Charles.  The neighbors across the street were heading northwest in their two vehicles, I told them to call any Van Slyke in Kansas City to find us.  Caron and I and the two dogs and two cats hooked up with her parents and the nephew, who had his boss from the newspaper with him.  We all went up to Jasper on deserted roads, quite a few abandoned cars on the side of the roads.  Hardly any signs of life anywhere, even the birds had left.  The ladies had to use the bathroom so we stopped at a station in Jasper, it was closed.  Went west on 190 to a Golden Corral where they got relief.  Caron's parents and the nephew and his boss stayed to eat, Caron and I went on to my parents' house in Woodville and unloaded the dogs and cats into the shop building, then took our stuff inside.  The cellphones weren't working too well.  Later the rest of them got there, we settled in.  We figured the winds would come from the southeast so we parked our vehicles away from the potential falling paths of trees.  (boy was that wrong) Mom had baked a turkey, made side dishes to go with it.  yummmm!  Played dominoes most of the evening, listening to the news reports.  Went to bed, winds were kicking up.  Their house is well-built and insulated well, so we didn't hear much of the storm until it got really bad.  Caron woke me in the night to say a tree fell on our Suburban.  The power was off by then, we had expected that.  I sleepily rolled back over.  She shook me again, 'Hank, a TREE fell on our CAR!"  So I got up, went out into the wind and rain, saw that a pine tree fell from the north onto the roof, crunching it just enough to break the glass on the driver's door and both rear doors, not the passenger door.  Nothing I could do at that point so I went back in. Dried off a little, crawled back into bed, and said to Caron. "Yup, it did."  She just huffed.  ;-)  A little later there was a big crash, a tree fell on the roof.  We all got up and found two leaks, one in Mom and Dad's bedroom and one in our bedroom, both on the east end of the house.  Buckets and storage tubs took care of the leaks.  More trees fell nearby, but no more on the house.  We could see tree branches through many of the windows.  went back to sleep.  In the morning, got up and it was drizzling.  The phone still worked, water was off.  The sound of chainsaws was already in the air.  Out on the road, neighbors were working to clear a path through the fallen trees.  All the fallen trees were lying North To South!  So many trees were blown over with their roots exposed up in the air, a big crater under the roots, full of reddish-brown muddy water.  Green trees that were upright yesterday, lying on the ground today.  The local radio station was on the air, we had some battery-powered radios.  The announcer said winds were measured at 123mph sustained, 157mph gusts, power out everywhere but we should still be careful around downed power lines.  We could hear KLVI in Beaumont, people were calling in with tales of utter devastation.  'unreal' is too calm of a word.  The cellphones weren't working at all, no signal.  Strangely, Mom and Dad's phone was working, it is an old-fashioned land line.
Dad and I got his generator out of the shop while the dogs nosed around the yard.  Nothing fell on the shop, the dogs and cats were okay.  Dad and I got generators after the big 'Ice Storm' of early 1997, just in case the power went off again. Now we get to use it.  We got it out of the box, read the instructions, put oil and gas in it, and it cranked easily.  We ran extension cords to the freezers, refrigerator and a fan.  The water was running at a trickle, Dad talked to some of the neighbors and learned that the water company, which is on Seneca Road near the highway, was fixing a line break caused by a tree's roots when it got blown down.  I took a lot of pictures.  I quickly realized I hadn't brought the proper foot gear, as ants were a problem and my sandals would be good for rain but not ants.  Local guys had lace-up rubber boots; I made a mental note to get some asap.  Dad had a chainsaw, 16" bar, he cut a lot of limbs away from the house and managed to cut the Suburban-crunching pine tree through the trunk on both sides.  Two young men from Miz Shirley's place next door came over with a little Kubota tractor that had a front-end loader, they pulled the log off the roof and the Suburban sprung up to its normal height.  Except for the crunched roof in the middle it was in good shape.  I felt inadequate and citified next to these capable and adaptable young men.  I thanked them and they went off to see if they could help other neighbors.  At times like this the usual phrases of 'brotherhood of man' and 'humanity coming together in time of need' seemed so inadequate.  Truly, in times of calamity, people pull together and help each other. 

The holes under the uprooted trees held muddy water, which we used to flush the toilets.  we tied a rope to the handle of a 5-gallon bucket, tossed it in and brought up enough water for a flush.  The ground was too soft at the edges for us to stand at the edge and dip the bucket.  Not long after we started using the 'stump water', some of the ladies asked if they needed to flush again since the water was still brown.  The guys got a big laugh out of that.

Sunday, the nephew and his boss drove back to Orange, stopped to ask a Highway Patrolman if it was okay to go in, he said sure, no problem.  Other cars were driving by into town and not stopping.  We heard the 'authorities' were preventing residents from going into Beaumont or Port Arthur.  Dumb.  They reported back by their cellphones that all our houses were okay, no water damage, but the roof on Mr. Williams' house was in bad shape and their garage door was blown down. 

Dad put the generator in the garage, instead of outside, so the noise and heat went through the house.  It was hard to sleep at night.  I managed to take a shower each night, sometimes it was just a trickle, but always cold water since their water heater is electric.  Lying in bed, shell-shocked and tired, it was hard to get to sleep.

Sunday, a neighbor drove up and said she had a load of vegetables from the grocery store, they were giving it all away since they didn't have power for refrigeration.  All kinds of vegetables that could be eaten raw.  Again, the kindness of neighbors comes shining through.  I developed a fondness for supper sandwiches of avocado and diced turkey meat.  I sat with the dogs out behind the shop, in the shade, I read books.  I tied the dogs so they could lie in a soft shady spot and not run off.  Zeke wanted to run really bad, so I hesitated, then let him loose and pleaded with him to please come back.  He was gone for an hour and a half, I worried a lot.  But he came back, drank water, and went to sleep by Monet.  Monet was suffering in the heat, so I poured water over her and rubbed it around in her fur.  It helped a bit.

Got home Tuesday after the storm, came down Hwy 62, turned off at the rice dryer and came in on the back roads, there were no roadblocks or checkpoints.  No problem until we got to Roselawn, our housing edition.  Paths carved through the fallen trees allowed one-lane travel in many places.  Couldn't pull straight into our driveway, too many limbs and debris, so we pulled in diagonally just off the street.  There wasn't any water damage since there was no storm surge, and we didn't get much rain since the storm had veered to the east just at it touched land.  A city police car was down the street, talking and laughing with the man who didn't leave during the storm.  When they rolled up later, I told them we lived there, pointed out our Suburban's customized roof, asked where food water and ice could be found.  They said the National Guard was handing it out in front of the Big Lots store.  The neighbor's cedar tree had blown over onto our roof and blocked our right gate, so I took the dogs to the left gate and put them in the back yard, brought their water bucket and food bowl.  Our water was still on.  None of our trees were blown down, but a cedar in the backyard was partially uprooted, but I figured I could replant it.  Limbs, leaves, shingles, odd debris were everywhere.  The winds had blown small bits of leaves and other stuff against every vertical surface, leaving a sparse coating of flaky stuff.  Most of the leaves were blown off all the trees, making it look like winter but with the heat of summer.  The lawns all had many yellow spots, some of the remaining leaves on bushes had yellow spots; Caron guessed that was caused by small hail made from seawater, blown in by the storm.  We opened the house and let the cats out, they blinked and ambled out, exploring everything.  They had faithfully used the litter boxes in the garage, thank goodness.  ;-)  We didn't see on one of the cats, Nena, for a couple of days; she finally came out from wherever she had been hiding.  We carried our stuff inside, I got the Chevelle out of the garage and got the generator out, took it around back and prepped it just like we had prepped Dad's, since this was the same model.  Coleman makes a great generator.  It also cranked easily, we had several cans of gas ready, so we hooked up the freezer and generator.  I got the little window a/c from upstairs and put it in our bedroom window, it felt really good.  So we slept in comfort Tuesday night and Wednesday night.  Wednesday, like every day after the storm, it got up to near 100 degrees, with no rain and little wind.  I cleaned up the yard and mowed it Wednesday, it was tough to keep working in the heat.  Just before the 'curfew' I helped Mr. Williams patch his roof with tar paper and batting strips he had managed to get at Home Depot.

 Lying in our own familiar bed, thankful it was all still there, I still had trouble sleeping.  I'd wake up about 1am, lie there for a while, then eventually go back to sleep.  That went on for several weeks, even after I went back to work.  Eventually, I started sleeping through the night again.

The noise of generators was common, and chainsaws.

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Check out this page, it's a saved page of kogt.com, the local radio station, whose owner stayed through the storm and managed to keep the station's website updated with info about Orange, with photos. 

http://www.crazywalker.com/rita/kogt/

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Oct. 3, 10:48pm -- message to friend in Alabama (Sparky):
will call Tuesday.  Suburban got tree on it in Woodville.  123mph sustained, 157 gusts there.  30+ trees down on parents' land, one on corner of house.   No injuries.  Went home Tuesday, no damage there.  Now with Caron's sister and her husband in Katy, arrived Thursday.  Bought 2003 Ford Explorer Saturday.  Suburban was totalled, but we drove it 300 miles here with smashed roof.  ;-)  All cats and dogs accounted for.  ;-)  We're going home Wednesday, have generator, running water, gas, everything but electricity.  Maybe three weeks for power to come on.  I'll hook generator to TV and computer.  ;-) Got pictures to upload tomorrow.  Will write epistle of this event later.

Oct. 3, 11pm -- reply to a friend on an email list: 
First time online since the storm hit, on dialup in Katy, TX.  My Suburban got tree on it in Woodville, at my parents' house, where we went to shelter.  123mph sustained, 157 gusts there.  30+ trees down on parents' land, one on corner of house.   No injuries.  Went home Tuesday, no damage there.  Now we are with Caron's sister and her husband in Katy, arrived Thursday.  Bought 2003 Ford Explorer Saturday.  Suburban was totaled, but we drove it 300 miles here with smashed roof.  ;-)  All cats and dogs accounted for.  ;-)  We're going home Wednesday, have generator, running water, gas, everything but electricity.  Maybe three weeks for power to come on.  I'll hook generator to TV and computer.  ;-) Got pictures to upload.  Will write epistle of this event later.  Thanks for your offer, we are doing fine so far. 

Oct. 22, 9:19pm -- message to Gary Stelly :