Re: JOHN__

[Guest guest]

Hello etteYes, I'm quite surprised by the response.   They had been saying all along that they expect us to be self sufficient for 3 days and initially they said that they would stage the supplies but would not start distributing till the three days have passed.   Of course, today is the 16th and they started distributing on the 15th while the hurricane was on the night of the 11th/12th so technically it had been three days before they started distributing, still I feel that people should be able to easily last longer than this without supplies.   These people need to live through a Canadian blizzard where you may be isolated for a week or more without the option of leaving your home period (sorry about that but I grew up in Canada).I think these people don't realize what supplies they're receiving either, that one MRE box is about six days of food for one person at two meals a day and it retails for about $80 to $100.   I've got far less food at home and still consider it plenty for the week.   Maybe that's why fate has allowed me the grace of having power and water while taking it away from so many in Houston.   Then again, I'm paying for everything that I have.I suspect that the change happened with Katrina/Rita in terms of how the government has responded, that and the fact that Mayor White is quite quick to complain.   Then there's the fact that the President's father lives in Houston.Today, the POD maps had one of the POD's at the Second Baptist church on Woodway.   Well, not only is Woodway on the less affected west side of town but it's a very posh area filled with multi-million dollar mansions, you can't tell me that these people didn't have the resources to stock their pantry.   There was another POD out on FM2920 which is so far away that it's practically in Austin, at least there's the argument that such a POD would serve the rural areas where people are less likely to come out seeking assistance but may actually need the care packs more.Went downtown to the office today, there was broken glass in the parking garage on the 13th floor.   Downtown must've been a giant food processor during the storm.   According to the company's emergency 1-800 number which we're supposed to call to see if we need to report to work, the office was closed today, it was also supposed to be closed yesterday as well but it seems that the department manager called in everyone other than me to bring up the systems without me but they failed to do so, mostly because they overlooked the key switch on some of the equipment hence they wound up turning up equipment in the wrong order and not turning some on at all.   I was the only one in today and spent the entire day figuring out what they did wrong yesterday.   I guess the manager is still hoping to use less expensive and less experienced people, up to now, he's been getting my services at the contract rates for someone with far less experience simply because he scared that engineer away and we had to fulfill the terms of the contract by placing me onsite but I guess with the contract coming up he must be afraid that he'll have to pay fair market rates for my services.Regards,On Sep 16, 2008, at 3:35 PM, ette Limegrover wrote:Thank God to hear that you're safe. I'm surprised that FEMA supplied the area with that amount of items. I live in Florida and WE'RE told to keep enough supplies to keep us going for THREE DAYS!! We are NOT to expect any assistance for three days as those are the days they're search and rescues primarily. I was upset to hear a woman complaining about only receiving enough supplies for one day and not for the entire family. She explained how she was accustomed to her house with air conditioning and her televisions. During Hurricane NO ONE came to help until one leader asked Where are the Troops?!! Then we received a lot of assistance, but not in all of the effected areas. This was almost a week later and everyone was on their own to survive. I wonder why other areas expect immediate assistance, but we're required to wait for three days. We never receive MRE's and not always do we receive water or ice. Pleased to hear you back online. Hugs Love & Prayersette

[Guest guest]

Hello etteYes, I'm quite surprised by the response.   They had been saying all along that they expect us to be self sufficient for 3 days and initially they said that they would stage the supplies but would not start distributing till the three days have passed.   Of course, today is the 16th and they started distributing on the 15th while the hurricane was on the night of the 11th/12th so technically it had been three days before they started distributing, still I feel that people should be able to easily last longer than this without supplies.   These people need to live through a Canadian blizzard where you may be isolated for a week or more without the option of leaving your home period (sorry about that but I grew up in Canada).I think these people don't realize what supplies they're receiving either, that one MRE box is about six days of food for one person at two meals a day and it retails for about $80 to $100.   I've got far less food at home and still consider it plenty for the week.   Maybe that's why fate has allowed me the grace of having power and water while taking it away from so many in Houston.   Then again, I'm paying for everything that I have.I suspect that the change happened with Katrina/Rita in terms of how the government has responded, that and the fact that Mayor White is quite quick to complain.   Then there's the fact that the President's father lives in Houston.Today, the POD maps had one of the POD's at the Second Baptist church on Woodway.   Well, not only is Woodway on the less affected west side of town but it's a very posh area filled with multi-million dollar mansions, you can't tell me that these people didn't have the resources to stock their pantry.   There was another POD out on FM2920 which is so far away that it's practically in Austin, at least there's the argument that such a POD would serve the rural areas where people are less likely to come out seeking assistance but may actually need the care packs more.Went downtown to the office today, there was broken glass in the parking garage on the 13th floor.   Downtown must've been a giant food processor during the storm.   According to the company's emergency 1-800 number which we're supposed to call to see if we need to report to work, the office was closed today, it was also supposed to be closed yesterday as well but it seems that the department manager called in everyone other than me to bring up the systems without me but they failed to do so, mostly because they overlooked the key switch on some of the equipment hence they wound up turning up equipment in the wrong order and not turning some on at all.   I was the only one in today and spent the entire day figuring out what they did wrong yesterday.   I guess the manager is still hoping to use less expensive and less experienced people, up to now, he's been getting my services at the contract rates for someone with far less experience simply because he scared that engineer away and we had to fulfill the terms of the contract by placing me onsite but I guess with the contract coming up he must be afraid that he'll have to pay fair market rates for my services.Regards,On Sep 16, 2008, at 3:35 PM, ette Limegrover wrote:Thank God to hear that you're safe. I'm surprised that FEMA supplied the area with that amount of items. I live in Florida and WE'RE told to keep enough supplies to keep us going for THREE DAYS!! We are NOT to expect any assistance for three days as those are the days they're search and rescues primarily. I was upset to hear a woman complaining about only receiving enough supplies for one day and not for the entire family. She explained how she was accustomed to her house with air conditioning and her televisions. During Hurricane NO ONE came to help until one leader asked Where are the Troops?!! Then we received a lot of assistance, but not in all of the effected areas. This was almost a week later and everyone was on their own to survive. I wonder why other areas expect immediate assistance, but we're required to wait for three days. We never receive MRE's and not always do we receive water or ice. Pleased to hear you back online. Hugs Love & Prayersette

[Guest guest]

Hello etteYes, I'm quite surprised by the response.   They had been saying all along that they expect us to be self sufficient for 3 days and initially they said that they would stage the supplies but would not start distributing till the three days have passed.   Of course, today is the 16th and they started distributing on the 15th while the hurricane was on the night of the 11th/12th so technically it had been three days before they started distributing, still I feel that people should be able to easily last longer than this without supplies.   These people need to live through a Canadian blizzard where you may be isolated for a week or more without the option of leaving your home period (sorry about that but I grew up in Canada).I think these people don't realize what supplies they're receiving either, that one MRE box is about six days of food for one person at two meals a day and it retails for about $80 to $100.   I've got far less food at home and still consider it plenty for the week.   Maybe that's why fate has allowed me the grace of having power and water while taking it away from so many in Houston.   Then again, I'm paying for everything that I have.I suspect that the change happened with Katrina/Rita in terms of how the government has responded, that and the fact that Mayor White is quite quick to complain.   Then there's the fact that the President's father lives in Houston.Today, the POD maps had one of the POD's at the Second Baptist church on Woodway.   Well, not only is Woodway on the less affected west side of town but it's a very posh area filled with multi-million dollar mansions, you can't tell me that these people didn't have the resources to stock their pantry.   There was another POD out on FM2920 which is so far away that it's practically in Austin, at least there's the argument that such a POD would serve the rural areas where people are less likely to come out seeking assistance but may actually need the care packs more.Went downtown to the office today, there was broken glass in the parking garage on the 13th floor.   Downtown must've been a giant food processor during the storm.   According to the company's emergency 1-800 number which we're supposed to call to see if we need to report to work, the office was closed today, it was also supposed to be closed yesterday as well but it seems that the department manager called in everyone other than me to bring up the systems without me but they failed to do so, mostly because they overlooked the key switch on some of the equipment hence they wound up turning up equipment in the wrong order and not turning some on at all.   I was the only one in today and spent the entire day figuring out what they did wrong yesterday.   I guess the manager is still hoping to use less expensive and less experienced people, up to now, he's been getting my services at the contract rates for someone with far less experience simply because he scared that engineer away and we had to fulfill the terms of the contract by placing me onsite but I guess with the contract coming up he must be afraid that he'll have to pay fair market rates for my services.Regards,On Sep 16, 2008, at 3:35 PM, ette Limegrover wrote:Thank God to hear that you're safe. I'm surprised that FEMA supplied the area with that amount of items. I live in Florida and WE'RE told to keep enough supplies to keep us going for THREE DAYS!! We are NOT to expect any assistance for three days as those are the days they're search and rescues primarily. I was upset to hear a woman complaining about only receiving enough supplies for one day and not for the entire family. She explained how she was accustomed to her house with air conditioning and her televisions. During Hurricane NO ONE came to help until one leader asked Where are the Troops?!! Then we received a lot of assistance, but not in all of the effected areas. This was almost a week later and everyone was on their own to survive. I wonder why other areas expect immediate assistance, but we're required to wait for three days. We never receive MRE's and not always do we receive water or ice. Pleased to hear you back online. Hugs Love & Prayersette

[Guest guest]

Hello DaveDidn't your home insurance cover the hotel bills when your house burned down?   Usually most home insurance policies will cover temporary accommodations, of course you'll still be out of pocket till the claims are approved.   Some insurance companies even have response teams that will come out to help with the recovery, these are services to enhance the marketability of their insurance products.   One rational for the government response has always been that private insurance companies can be overwhelmed by a disaster that affects so many of their customers hence many people would not get the assistance that they would've had had the disaster only affected them rather than so many.   Indeed, FEMA benefits require that you first exhaust all other avenues of assistance such as insurance and disaster loans.   Actually very little of what the government "gives" is "free", search and rescue costs are invoiced to the survivors rescued though often that goes unpaid, only half of the foreign aid that the US government promises to other nations is ever paid out because the government puts numerous unrelated requirements to the funds given, stipulations such as requiring the foreign nation to cease distributing condoms before receiving foreign aid or to allow more visas for christian missionaries.   The same is true with research grants, it's common in academia to say that the money comes in all colours meaning that each grant has numerous stipulations as to how and what the money can be spent on.   The public never hears about this, they only hear about how our leaders have generously promised X amount of relief in dollars to a disaster.   The altruism of our society is truly just a facade.Regards,On Sep 16, 2008, at 2:44 AM, Dave Fales wrote:yea but they have pplaces to go they have places that feed them they have funds to help them rebuild go tyhrough what i did there is none of thst your on your own end of sotry

[Guest guest]

Hello DaveDidn't your home insurance cover the hotel bills when your house burned down?   Usually most home insurance policies will cover temporary accommodations, of course you'll still be out of pocket till the claims are approved.   Some insurance companies even have response teams that will come out to help with the recovery, these are services to enhance the marketability of their insurance products.   One rational for the government response has always been that private insurance companies can be overwhelmed by a disaster that affects so many of their customers hence many people would not get the assistance that they would've had had the disaster only affected them rather than so many.   Indeed, FEMA benefits require that you first exhaust all other avenues of assistance such as insurance and disaster loans.   Actually very little of what the government "gives" is "free", search and rescue costs are invoiced to the survivors rescued though often that goes unpaid, only half of the foreign aid that the US government promises to other nations is ever paid out because the government puts numerous unrelated requirements to the funds given, stipulations such as requiring the foreign nation to cease distributing condoms before receiving foreign aid or to allow more visas for christian missionaries.   The same is true with research grants, it's common in academia to say that the money comes in all colours meaning that each grant has numerous stipulations as to how and what the money can be spent on.   The public never hears about this, they only hear about how our leaders have generously promised X amount of relief in dollars to a disaster.   The altruism of our society is truly just a facade.Regards,On Sep 16, 2008, at 2:44 AM, Dave Fales wrote:yea but they have pplaces to go they have places that feed them they have funds to help them rebuild go tyhrough what i did there is none of thst your on your own end of sotry

[Guest guest]

Hello DaveDidn't your home insurance cover the hotel bills when your house burned down?   Usually most home insurance policies will cover temporary accommodations, of course you'll still be out of pocket till the claims are approved.   Some insurance companies even have response teams that will come out to help with the recovery, these are services to enhance the marketability of their insurance products.   One rational for the government response has always been that private insurance companies can be overwhelmed by a disaster that affects so many of their customers hence many people would not get the assistance that they would've had had the disaster only affected them rather than so many.   Indeed, FEMA benefits require that you first exhaust all other avenues of assistance such as insurance and disaster loans.   Actually very little of what the government "gives" is "free", search and rescue costs are invoiced to the survivors rescued though often that goes unpaid, only half of the foreign aid that the US government promises to other nations is ever paid out because the government puts numerous unrelated requirements to the funds given, stipulations such as requiring the foreign nation to cease distributing condoms before receiving foreign aid or to allow more visas for christian missionaries.   The same is true with research grants, it's common in academia to say that the money comes in all colours meaning that each grant has numerous stipulations as to how and what the money can be spent on.   The public never hears about this, they only hear about how our leaders have generously promised X amount of relief in dollars to a disaster.   The altruism of our society is truly just a facade.Regards,On Sep 16, 2008, at 2:44 AM, Dave Fales wrote:yea but they have pplaces to go they have places that feed them they have funds to help them rebuild go tyhrough what i did there is none of thst your on your own end of sotry

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

So glad that you made it through the storm well... I have seen lots of pics from your way and it all looks terrible ( How many people are missing from the coastal area? or don't they really know... Gas here has jumped up over 50 cents more since the hurricane, but its trading under $95. a barrel, none of this makes sence to me, the gas prices are back up to where they were when it was $147. a barrel...

I hope Tonia didn't get anymore money out of you, but then its none of my buisness...

Ike came through here over the weekend, we faired very well... South of us got cat 1 winds and rain from it and did heavy damage killing 3, west & north of us got the heavy rains up to 10"s... We got a total of 3"s here and a brief gusts of 35mph winds so no biggie for us... Hope everyone is safe from this storm... I can't imagine living through that storm like you did I would be terrified... Maybe if you start buying an extra can of non perishables each week from now on, you would have a good stockpile in case you would ever have to go through this again, most canned goods have a 2 year shelf life, in reality their good longer that the expiration dates, just push on the top of the can, if it doesn't pop than the seal isn't broke, it the seal isn't broke its still good...

Are you able to go into work yet??? according to what I hear on TV, Houston is still not up and running yet... My brother in law from Fla, works for the phone company, and he was sent there in your area to help out with the phone repairs...

Hang in there, things have to look better than they did last week!

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

Hello Helen

Sorry to hear that Ike's headed your way. We slowed him down as much as we could. We still have ten flood warnings, eleven river flood warnings and one coastal flood statement in effect. Guess it'll be a while for all this water to drain out of the area.

The ferocity of the winds were incredible, I can't possibly imagine anyone being able to withstand such winds. The lake has receded, the neighbour's docks have surfaced and many of the neighbours have broken out their peddle boats and are peddling around the neighborhood. Walgreens, Krogers, Randalls and HEB are opened out here but they all have huge lines as everyone seems to have cabin fever. The traffic is horrible out there.

Tonia, that girl that was asking for money to evacuate her mom came over, she says that two of her windows blew out and she has no power and would like to stay here for a while, problem is she's asking for more money because she wants to send her children with her mom out to Dempsey. She was also low on gas, I had filled her tank before the storm since she had no gas and now she was at half a tank, when I asked why, she said that she slept in the truck for the AC which is a very silly and dangerous thing to do, you can easily succumb to CO by sleeping in a car with the engine running. I gave her the extra 3 gallons that I had, it's dangerous to keep gasoline around in those plastic fuel cans since they're only designed for you to carry a gallon or two from a gas station back to your car, not to transport or store for any length of time. I've been meaning to get some decent military grade metal gas cans for some time now but they have to be ordered in.

I would expect that gasoline will be in short supply for the next couple of weeks. With so many people without electricity, a lot of people will be running generators and few are bright enough to get the tri-fuel generators or the tri-fuel conversions so that they can run the generators off the natural gas line instead of constantly trying to get more gas. It always seems dangerous to me to be trying to refill those tiny gas tanks while the generator is still hot and/or running.

I had been thinking about saving up for a generator and transfer switch setup but didn't think that I could afford something like that till next year but if the power came back this quickly, maybe I won't need a generator set up here. At the very least, that project can have it's priority lowered.

They have the downtown core blockaded and you have to identify yourself and explain where you are going and why before they'll let you in. The company has a 1-800 emergency number to call to find out what's going on and they say that most of the office is intact except for a few offices. Doesn't sound like my office was one of the ones affected so that's good. Officially, the office will be closed on Monday, a mixed blessing, I'm sure it's best to just stay home for the next few days but I get less money if I don't have billable hours.

Regards,

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

So glad that you made it through the storm well... I have seen lots of pics from your way and it all looks terrible ( How many people are missing from the coastal area? or don't they really know... Gas here has jumped up over 50 cents more since the hurricane, but its trading under $95. a barrel, none of this makes sence to me, the gas prices are back up to where they were when it was $147. a barrel...

I hope Tonia didn't get anymore money out of you, but then its none of my buisness...

Ike came through here over the weekend, we faired very well... South of us got cat 1 winds and rain from it and did heavy damage killing 3, west & north of us got the heavy rains up to 10"s... We got a total of 3"s here and a brief gusts of 35mph winds so no biggie for us... Hope everyone is safe from this storm... I can't imagine living through that storm like you did I would be terrified... Maybe if you start buying an extra can of non perishables each week from now on, you would have a good stockpile in case you would ever have to go through this again, most canned goods have a 2 year shelf life, in reality their good longer that the expiration dates, just push on the top of the can, if it doesn't pop than the seal isn't broke, it the seal isn't broke its still good...

Are you able to go into work yet??? according to what I hear on TV, Houston is still not up and running yet... My brother in law from Fla, works for the phone company, and he was sent there in your area to help out with the phone repairs...

Hang in there, things have to look better than they did last week!

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

Hello Helen

Sorry to hear that Ike's headed your way. We slowed him down as much as we could. We still have ten flood warnings, eleven river flood warnings and one coastal flood statement in effect. Guess it'll be a while for all this water to drain out of the area.

The ferocity of the winds were incredible, I can't possibly imagine anyone being able to withstand such winds. The lake has receded, the neighbour's docks have surfaced and many of the neighbours have broken out their peddle boats and are peddling around the neighborhood. Walgreens, Krogers, Randalls and HEB are opened out here but they all have huge lines as everyone seems to have cabin fever. The traffic is horrible out there.

Tonia, that girl that was asking for money to evacuate her mom came over, she says that two of her windows blew out and she has no power and would like to stay here for a while, problem is she's asking for more money because she wants to send her children with her mom out to Dempsey. She was also low on gas, I had filled her tank before the storm since she had no gas and now she was at half a tank, when I asked why, she said that she slept in the truck for the AC which is a very silly and dangerous thing to do, you can easily succumb to CO by sleeping in a car with the engine running. I gave her the extra 3 gallons that I had, it's dangerous to keep gasoline around in those plastic fuel cans since they're only designed for you to carry a gallon or two from a gas station back to your car, not to transport or store for any length of time. I've been meaning to get some decent military grade metal gas cans for some time now but they have to be ordered in.

I would expect that gasoline will be in short supply for the next couple of weeks. With so many people without electricity, a lot of people will be running generators and few are bright enough to get the tri-fuel generators or the tri-fuel conversions so that they can run the generators off the natural gas line instead of constantly trying to get more gas. It always seems dangerous to me to be trying to refill those tiny gas tanks while the generator is still hot and/or running.

I had been thinking about saving up for a generator and transfer switch setup but didn't think that I could afford something like that till next year but if the power came back this quickly, maybe I won't need a generator set up here. At the very least, that project can have it's priority lowered.

They have the downtown core blockaded and you have to identify yourself and explain where you are going and why before they'll let you in. The company has a 1-800 emergency number to call to find out what's going on and they say that most of the office is intact except for a few offices. Doesn't sound like my office was one of the ones affected so that's good. Officially, the office will be closed on Monday, a mixed blessing, I'm sure it's best to just stay home for the next few days but I get less money if I don't have billable hours.

Regards,

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

So glad that you made it through the storm well... I have seen lots of pics from your way and it all looks terrible ( How many people are missing from the coastal area? or don't they really know... Gas here has jumped up over 50 cents more since the hurricane, but its trading under $95. a barrel, none of this makes sence to me, the gas prices are back up to where they were when it was $147. a barrel...

I hope Tonia didn't get anymore money out of you, but then its none of my buisness...

Ike came through here over the weekend, we faired very well... South of us got cat 1 winds and rain from it and did heavy damage killing 3, west & north of us got the heavy rains up to 10"s... We got a total of 3"s here and a brief gusts of 35mph winds so no biggie for us... Hope everyone is safe from this storm... I can't imagine living through that storm like you did I would be terrified... Maybe if you start buying an extra can of non perishables each week from now on, you would have a good stockpile in case you would ever have to go through this again, most canned goods have a 2 year shelf life, in reality their good longer that the expiration dates, just push on the top of the can, if it doesn't pop than the seal isn't broke, it the seal isn't broke its still good...

Are you able to go into work yet??? according to what I hear on TV, Houston is still not up and running yet... My brother in law from Fla, works for the phone company, and he was sent there in your area to help out with the phone repairs...

Hang in there, things have to look better than they did last week!

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

Hello Helen

Sorry to hear that Ike's headed your way. We slowed him down as much as we could. We still have ten flood warnings, eleven river flood warnings and one coastal flood statement in effect. Guess it'll be a while for all this water to drain out of the area.

The ferocity of the winds were incredible, I can't possibly imagine anyone being able to withstand such winds. The lake has receded, the neighbour's docks have surfaced and many of the neighbours have broken out their peddle boats and are peddling around the neighborhood. Walgreens, Krogers, Randalls and HEB are opened out here but they all have huge lines as everyone seems to have cabin fever. The traffic is horrible out there.

Tonia, that girl that was asking for money to evacuate her mom came over, she says that two of her windows blew out and she has no power and would like to stay here for a while, problem is she's asking for more money because she wants to send her children with her mom out to Dempsey. She was also low on gas, I had filled her tank before the storm since she had no gas and now she was at half a tank, when I asked why, she said that she slept in the truck for the AC which is a very silly and dangerous thing to do, you can easily succumb to CO by sleeping in a car with the engine running. I gave her the extra 3 gallons that I had, it's dangerous to keep gasoline around in those plastic fuel cans since they're only designed for you to carry a gallon or two from a gas station back to your car, not to transport or store for any length of time. I've been meaning to get some decent military grade metal gas cans for some time now but they have to be ordered in.

I would expect that gasoline will be in short supply for the next couple of weeks. With so many people without electricity, a lot of people will be running generators and few are bright enough to get the tri-fuel generators or the tri-fuel conversions so that they can run the generators off the natural gas line instead of constantly trying to get more gas. It always seems dangerous to me to be trying to refill those tiny gas tanks while the generator is still hot and/or running.

I had been thinking about saving up for a generator and transfer switch setup but didn't think that I could afford something like that till next year but if the power came back this quickly, maybe I won't need a generator set up here. At the very least, that project can have it's priority lowered.

They have the downtown core blockaded and you have to identify yourself and explain where you are going and why before they'll let you in. The company has a 1-800 emergency number to call to find out what's going on and they say that most of the office is intact except for a few offices. Doesn't sound like my office was one of the ones affected so that's good. Officially, the office will be closed on Monday, a mixed blessing, I'm sure it's best to just stay home for the next few days but I get less money if I don't have billable hours.

Regards,

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

, what is a POD??? I figured out MREs are food boxes...

Are the mansions getting these food boxes too??? If so, unbelievable.

I buy something extra every week when I get grocery's and keep my pantry as full as I can, its just the fear of being with out food I guess... When I was little and after my Mom died, there was 6 of us kids and me being second oldest at the ripe old age of 9 had to take care of all the baby's and little ones, sometimes my Dad wouldn't come home for days on end and we had no food in the house, luckily the 2 baby's went to live at our gramas and the other 4 of us ( 5,8,9,10yrs old) would get to eat lunch at school, we had to work in the cafeteria to get it free, I worked 2 shifts cause I didn't think my little 5yr old sister was big enough to do that heavy work and they allowed it... The weekends were a little more harder, but if it was springtime we ate dandelion greens and if the chickens were laying we had eggs... When our Uncle was in town from driving truck he would stop in and check on us and he always would bring us a bag of groceries, so I guess all in all we were ok, it was just when the pantry was totally empty and being kids with no adult around we got pretty scared at times... Sorry for going down memory lane, but I think if people really put their minds to it they could survive on their own more than they think, its usually just the fear of being with out... Just my Opinion! )

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I can't imagine the devastation that you are seeing, just seeing it on the news is terrible, living it would be awful... When powers out here at stop lights, people don't know what to do either! When the lights are out its an automatic four way stop, but people on the main roads think they can just whiz on through with no concern for anyone else's safety...

That would explain the gas prices I guess, its a shame though, I'm sure there are some that are still gouging prices in bad hit areas... If generators are hooked up outside the home, how can they die from them??? It still gets into the house?

Ike came through Indiana and Ohio with a vengence too, of course not as bad as you in Texas, but like a tornado for here...

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

Hello Helen

We're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested. It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops), the curfew has been pushed back to midnight. So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.

Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.

Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks. The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east. The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.

They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.

I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1. It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3. Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land. I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.

I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert. Something to look into for the next hurricane season.

They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it. Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F. They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem. Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a declared disaster area. It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator? Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it. Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour. They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster. It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.

Regards,

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I can't imagine the devastation that you are seeing, just seeing it on the news is terrible, living it would be awful... When powers out here at stop lights, people don't know what to do either! When the lights are out its an automatic four way stop, but people on the main roads think they can just whiz on through with no concern for anyone else's safety...

That would explain the gas prices I guess, its a shame though, I'm sure there are some that are still gouging prices in bad hit areas... If generators are hooked up outside the home, how can they die from them??? It still gets into the house?

Ike came through Indiana and Ohio with a vengence too, of course not as bad as you in Texas, but like a tornado for here...

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

Hello Helen

We're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested. It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops), the curfew has been pushed back to midnight. So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.

Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.

Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks. The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east. The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.

They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.

I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1. It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3. Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land. I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.

I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert. Something to look into for the next hurricane season.

They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it. Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F. They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem. Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a declared disaster area. It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator? Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it. Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour. They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster. It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.

Regards,

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I can't imagine the devastation that you are seeing, just seeing it on the news is terrible, living it would be awful... When powers out here at stop lights, people don't know what to do either! When the lights are out its an automatic four way stop, but people on the main roads think they can just whiz on through with no concern for anyone else's safety...

That would explain the gas prices I guess, its a shame though, I'm sure there are some that are still gouging prices in bad hit areas... If generators are hooked up outside the home, how can they die from them??? It still gets into the house?

Ike came through Indiana and Ohio with a vengence too, of course not as bad as you in Texas, but like a tornado for here...

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

Hello Helen

We're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested. It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops), the curfew has been pushed back to midnight. So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.

Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.

Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks. The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east. The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.

They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.

I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1. It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3. Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land. I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.

I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert. Something to look into for the next hurricane season.

They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it. Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F. They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem. Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a declared disaster area. It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator? Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it. Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour. They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster. It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.

Regards,

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenWe're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested.  It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops),  the curfew has been pushed back to midnight.   So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.  Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks.   The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east.   The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1.   It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3.   Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land.    I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert.   Something to look into for the next hurricane season.   They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it.   Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F.   They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem.   Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a  declared disaster area.   It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator?   Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it.   Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour.   They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster.   It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 8:31 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:Hi ,  So glad that you made it through the storm well...  I have seen lots of pics from your way and it all looks terrible (  How many people are missing from the coastal area? or don't they really know...  Gas here has jumped up over 50 cents more since the hurricane, but its trading under $95. a barrel, none of this makes sence to me, the gas prices are back up to where they were when it was $147. a barrel...  I hope Tonia didn't get anymore money out of you, but then its none of my buisness...  Ike came through here over the weekend, we faired very well...  South of us got cat 1 winds and rain from it and did heavy damage killing 3, west & north of us got the heavy rains up to 10"s...  We got a total of 3"s here and a brief gusts of 35mph winds so no biggie for us...  Hope everyone is safe from this storm...  I can't imagine living through that storm like you did I would be terrified...  Maybe if you start buying an extra can of non perishables each week from now on, you would have a good stockpile in case you would ever have to go through this again, most canned goods have a 2 year shelf life, in reality their good longer that the expiration dates, just push on the top of the can, if it doesn't pop than the seal isn't broke, it the seal isn't broke its still good...  Are you able to go into work yet???  according to what I hear on TV, Houston is still not up and running yet...  My brother in law from Fla, works for the phone company, and he was sent there in your area to help out with the phone repairs...   Hang in there, things have to look better than they did last week!((( Caring Hugs )))HelenHello HelenSorry to hear that Ike's headed your way.   We slowed him down as much as we could.   We still have ten flood warnings, eleven river flood warnings and one coastal flood statement in effect.   Guess it'll be a while for all this water to drain out of the area.The ferocity of the winds were incredible, I can't possibly imagine anyone being able to withstand such winds.   The lake has receded, the neighbour's docks have surfaced and many of the neighbours have broken out their peddle boats and are peddling around the neighborhood.   Walgreens, Krogers, Randalls and HEB are opened out here but they all have huge lines as everyone seems to have cabin fever.   The traffic is horrible out there.    Tonia, that girl that was asking for money to evacuate her mom came over, she says that two of her windows blew out and she has no power and would like to stay here for a while, problem is she's asking for more money because she wants to send her children with her mom out to Dempsey.   She was also low on gas, I had filled her tank before the storm since she had no gas and now she was at half a tank, when I asked why, she said that she slept in the truck for the AC which is a very silly and dangerous thing to do, you can easily succumb to CO by sleeping in a car with the engine running.   I gave her the extra 3 gallons that I had, it's dangerous to keep gasoline around in those plastic fuel cans since they're only designed for you to carry a gallon or two from a gas station back to your car, not to transport or store for any length of time.   I've been meaning to get some decent military grade metal gas cans for some time now but they have to be ordered in.I would expect that gasoline will be in short supply for the next couple of weeks.   With so many people without electricity, a lot of people will be running generators and few are bright enough to get the tri-fuel generators or the tri-fuel conversions so that they can run the generators off the natural gas line instead of constantly trying to get more gas.   It always seems dangerous to me to be trying to refill those tiny gas tanks while the generator is still hot and/or running.   I had been thinking about saving up for a generator and transfer switch setup but didn't think that I could afford something like that till next year but if the power came back this quickly, maybe I won't need a generator set up here.   At the very least, that project can have it's priority lowered.They have the downtown core blockaded and you have to identify yourself and explain where you are going and why before they'll let you in.   The company has a 1-800 emergency number to call to find out what's going on and they say that most of the office is intact except for a few offices.   Doesn't sound like my office was one of the ones affected so that's good.   Officially, the office will be closed on Monday, a mixed blessing, I'm sure it's best to just stay home for the next few days but I get less money if I don't have billable hours.Regards, "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenA pod is a FEMA Point of Distribution.   Basically they set up a number of sites where you're expected to line up for a bag of ice, drinking water and a box of MRE's.   Kroger is also setting up sites where they're handing out bags of ice and drinking water for free.   I don't know if the people in the mansions are bothering to line up at the POD's but that one POD being in the middle of a very rich neighborhood is just unbelievable.MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) were developed for the armed forces, they're prepared food that do not need to be refrigerated and they don't need to be rehydrated like freeze dried foods.   They're supposed to be actually very good, probably better than those frozen dinners.   Then again a Banquet frozen dinner costs about 90 cents while a MRE with side and dessert costs about 3 dollars.   Still it's tempting to buy some.   Of course, I could just go out and line up for a box of twelve meals.   My sister buys them because of the earthquakes in Hawaii and mixes them in with their regular food so that they don't have any older than two years old.I'm sure that distributing the supplies is a good thing but it does upset me that people aren't able to do without for a longer period of time.   When we were children, my mother would talk the butcher into giving her the scrap meat for free and would make buns out of flour and yeast, that way all they had to buy was the flour.   During the summer, my mother would have a huge vegetable garden and during the fall we had to help harvest the vegetables.   She would purchase eggs from the Hutterites because they would be much less expensive and they would be fresh, once she bought a chicken and butchered it herself.   I'm certain that having had to do with so little is what makes me so mad with the lines of SUV's with obviously well fed people collecting the emergency goods, that and when they complain about how little it is.   I'm certain that my mother could've made those twelve MRE meals last a month with a family of five and probably has with less yet they had that lady on TV complaining about those twelve meals not being enough for her family of four for more than a day.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:07 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:, what is a POD???  I figured out MREs are food boxes...Are the mansions getting these food boxes too???  If so, unbelievable.    I buy something extra every week when I get grocery's and keep my pantry as full as I can, its just the fear of being with out food I guess...     When I was little and after my Mom died, there was 6 of us kids and me being second oldest at the ripe old age of 9 had to take care of all the baby's and little ones, sometimes my Dad wouldn't come home for days on end and we had no food in the house, luckily the 2 baby's went to live at our gramas and the other 4 of us ( 5,8,9,10yrs old) would get to eat lunch at school, we had to work in the cafeteria to get it free, I worked 2 shifts cause I didn't think my little 5yr old sister was big enough to do that heavy work and they allowed it...  The weekends were a little more harder, but if it was springtime we ate dandelion greens and if the chickens were laying we had eggs...  When our Uncle was in town from driving truck he would stop in and check on us and he always would bring us a bag of groceries, so I guess all in all we were ok, it was just when the pantry was totally empty and being kids with no adult around we got pretty scared at times...  Sorry for going down memory lane, but I think if people really put their minds to it they could survive on their own more than they think, its usually just the fear of being with out... Just my Opinion!  )((( Caring Hugs )))Helen  "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenA pod is a FEMA Point of Distribution.   Basically they set up a number of sites where you're expected to line up for a bag of ice, drinking water and a box of MRE's.   Kroger is also setting up sites where they're handing out bags of ice and drinking water for free.   I don't know if the people in the mansions are bothering to line up at the POD's but that one POD being in the middle of a very rich neighborhood is just unbelievable.MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) were developed for the armed forces, they're prepared food that do not need to be refrigerated and they don't need to be rehydrated like freeze dried foods.   They're supposed to be actually very good, probably better than those frozen dinners.   Then again a Banquet frozen dinner costs about 90 cents while a MRE with side and dessert costs about 3 dollars.   Still it's tempting to buy some.   Of course, I could just go out and line up for a box of twelve meals.   My sister buys them because of the earthquakes in Hawaii and mixes them in with their regular food so that they don't have any older than two years old.I'm sure that distributing the supplies is a good thing but it does upset me that people aren't able to do without for a longer period of time.   When we were children, my mother would talk the butcher into giving her the scrap meat for free and would make buns out of flour and yeast, that way all they had to buy was the flour.   During the summer, my mother would have a huge vegetable garden and during the fall we had to help harvest the vegetables.   She would purchase eggs from the Hutterites because they would be much less expensive and they would be fresh, once she bought a chicken and butchered it herself.   I'm certain that having had to do with so little is what makes me so mad with the lines of SUV's with obviously well fed people collecting the emergency goods, that and when they complain about how little it is.   I'm certain that my mother could've made those twelve MRE meals last a month with a family of five and probably has with less yet they had that lady on TV complaining about those twelve meals not being enough for her family of four for more than a day.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:07 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:, what is a POD???  I figured out MREs are food boxes...Are the mansions getting these food boxes too???  If so, unbelievable.    I buy something extra every week when I get grocery's and keep my pantry as full as I can, its just the fear of being with out food I guess...     When I was little and after my Mom died, there was 6 of us kids and me being second oldest at the ripe old age of 9 had to take care of all the baby's and little ones, sometimes my Dad wouldn't come home for days on end and we had no food in the house, luckily the 2 baby's went to live at our gramas and the other 4 of us ( 5,8,9,10yrs old) would get to eat lunch at school, we had to work in the cafeteria to get it free, I worked 2 shifts cause I didn't think my little 5yr old sister was big enough to do that heavy work and they allowed it...  The weekends were a little more harder, but if it was springtime we ate dandelion greens and if the chickens were laying we had eggs...  When our Uncle was in town from driving truck he would stop in and check on us and he always would bring us a bag of groceries, so I guess all in all we were ok, it was just when the pantry was totally empty and being kids with no adult around we got pretty scared at times...  Sorry for going down memory lane, but I think if people really put their minds to it they could survive on their own more than they think, its usually just the fear of being with out... Just my Opinion!  )((( Caring Hugs )))Helen  "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenA pod is a FEMA Point of Distribution.   Basically they set up a number of sites where you're expected to line up for a bag of ice, drinking water and a box of MRE's.   Kroger is also setting up sites where they're handing out bags of ice and drinking water for free.   I don't know if the people in the mansions are bothering to line up at the POD's but that one POD being in the middle of a very rich neighborhood is just unbelievable.MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) were developed for the armed forces, they're prepared food that do not need to be refrigerated and they don't need to be rehydrated like freeze dried foods.   They're supposed to be actually very good, probably better than those frozen dinners.   Then again a Banquet frozen dinner costs about 90 cents while a MRE with side and dessert costs about 3 dollars.   Still it's tempting to buy some.   Of course, I could just go out and line up for a box of twelve meals.   My sister buys them because of the earthquakes in Hawaii and mixes them in with their regular food so that they don't have any older than two years old.I'm sure that distributing the supplies is a good thing but it does upset me that people aren't able to do without for a longer period of time.   When we were children, my mother would talk the butcher into giving her the scrap meat for free and would make buns out of flour and yeast, that way all they had to buy was the flour.   During the summer, my mother would have a huge vegetable garden and during the fall we had to help harvest the vegetables.   She would purchase eggs from the Hutterites because they would be much less expensive and they would be fresh, once she bought a chicken and butchered it herself.   I'm certain that having had to do with so little is what makes me so mad with the lines of SUV's with obviously well fed people collecting the emergency goods, that and when they complain about how little it is.   I'm certain that my mother could've made those twelve MRE meals last a month with a family of five and probably has with less yet they had that lady on TV complaining about those twelve meals not being enough for her family of four for more than a day.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:07 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:, what is a POD???  I figured out MREs are food boxes...Are the mansions getting these food boxes too???  If so, unbelievable.    I buy something extra every week when I get grocery's and keep my pantry as full as I can, its just the fear of being with out food I guess...     When I was little and after my Mom died, there was 6 of us kids and me being second oldest at the ripe old age of 9 had to take care of all the baby's and little ones, sometimes my Dad wouldn't come home for days on end and we had no food in the house, luckily the 2 baby's went to live at our gramas and the other 4 of us ( 5,8,9,10yrs old) would get to eat lunch at school, we had to work in the cafeteria to get it free, I worked 2 shifts cause I didn't think my little 5yr old sister was big enough to do that heavy work and they allowed it...  The weekends were a little more harder, but if it was springtime we ate dandelion greens and if the chickens were laying we had eggs...  When our Uncle was in town from driving truck he would stop in and check on us and he always would bring us a bag of groceries, so I guess all in all we were ok, it was just when the pantry was totally empty and being kids with no adult around we got pretty scared at times...  Sorry for going down memory lane, but I think if people really put their minds to it they could survive on their own more than they think, its usually just the fear of being with out... Just my Opinion!  )((( Caring Hugs )))Helen  "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenThe traffic lights that have no power at all are really dangerous at night cause you don't even know that you're coming up on an intersection in the dark.   That'll probably be more of a problem now that they've pushed the curfew back to midnight from 9 pm.Apparently, the generators need to be at least four feet from the house and away from any vents.   Being away from the vents is probably the important part.   A lot of people are just running it in their garage with the garage door open or just out on the porch and that will definitely bring in the carbon monoxide into the house.   One man left the generator running when he went to work and his children were dead when he got home.   I guess the important thing is to also buy some Carbon Monoxide detectors.   I bought a CO detector for my parents place some time ago, probably should do the same for here.There are complaints about price gouging but the wholesale price of gasoline is now $5 a gallon so the stations are actually selling it at a loss and are just increasing the prices as quickly as the law allows.Now they're saying that since Texas is a work at will state, there's nothing to stop your employer from firing you if you refuse to show up because you're busy with the hurricane damage.   There is a law that protects your job if you were in a mandatory evacuation zone but most of Houston wasn't in such a zone but still got a lot of damage.   I certainly hope that the employers will not be that cruel.They just had a story on Ike in Indiana on the news.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:47 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:Hi ,  I can't imagine the devastation that you are seeing, just seeing it on the news is terrible, living it would be awful...  When powers out here at stop lights, people don't know what to do either!  When the lights are out its an automatic four way stop, but people on the main roads think they can just whiz on through with no concern for anyone else's safety...  That would explain the gas prices I guess, its a shame though, I'm sure there are some that are still gouging prices in bad hit areas...  If generators are hooked up outside the home, how can they die from them???  It still gets into the house?  Ike came through Indiana and Ohio with a vengence too, of course not as bad as you in Texas, but like a tornado for here...((( Caring Hugs )))Helen  Hello HelenWe're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested.  It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops),  the curfew has been pushed back to midnight.   So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.  Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks.   The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east.   The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1.   It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3.   Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land.    I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert.   Something to look into for the next hurricane season.   They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it.   Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F.   They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem.   Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a  declared disaster area.   It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator?   Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it.   Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour.   They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster.   It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.Regards, "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenThe traffic lights that have no power at all are really dangerous at night cause you don't even know that you're coming up on an intersection in the dark.   That'll probably be more of a problem now that they've pushed the curfew back to midnight from 9 pm.Apparently, the generators need to be at least four feet from the house and away from any vents.   Being away from the vents is probably the important part.   A lot of people are just running it in their garage with the garage door open or just out on the porch and that will definitely bring in the carbon monoxide into the house.   One man left the generator running when he went to work and his children were dead when he got home.   I guess the important thing is to also buy some Carbon Monoxide detectors.   I bought a CO detector for my parents place some time ago, probably should do the same for here.There are complaints about price gouging but the wholesale price of gasoline is now $5 a gallon so the stations are actually selling it at a loss and are just increasing the prices as quickly as the law allows.Now they're saying that since Texas is a work at will state, there's nothing to stop your employer from firing you if you refuse to show up because you're busy with the hurricane damage.   There is a law that protects your job if you were in a mandatory evacuation zone but most of Houston wasn't in such a zone but still got a lot of damage.   I certainly hope that the employers will not be that cruel.They just had a story on Ike in Indiana on the news.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:47 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:Hi ,  I can't imagine the devastation that you are seeing, just seeing it on the news is terrible, living it would be awful...  When powers out here at stop lights, people don't know what to do either!  When the lights are out its an automatic four way stop, but people on the main roads think they can just whiz on through with no concern for anyone else's safety...  That would explain the gas prices I guess, its a shame though, I'm sure there are some that are still gouging prices in bad hit areas...  If generators are hooked up outside the home, how can they die from them???  It still gets into the house?  Ike came through Indiana and Ohio with a vengence too, of course not as bad as you in Texas, but like a tornado for here...((( Caring Hugs )))Helen  Hello HelenWe're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested.  It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops),  the curfew has been pushed back to midnight.   So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.  Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks.   The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east.   The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1.   It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3.   Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land.    I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert.   Something to look into for the next hurricane season.   They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it.   Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F.   They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem.   Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a  declared disaster area.   It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator?   Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it.   Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour.   They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster.   It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.Regards, "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

Hello HelenThe traffic lights that have no power at all are really dangerous at night cause you don't even know that you're coming up on an intersection in the dark.   That'll probably be more of a problem now that they've pushed the curfew back to midnight from 9 pm.Apparently, the generators need to be at least four feet from the house and away from any vents.   Being away from the vents is probably the important part.   A lot of people are just running it in their garage with the garage door open or just out on the porch and that will definitely bring in the carbon monoxide into the house.   One man left the generator running when he went to work and his children were dead when he got home.   I guess the important thing is to also buy some Carbon Monoxide detectors.   I bought a CO detector for my parents place some time ago, probably should do the same for here.There are complaints about price gouging but the wholesale price of gasoline is now $5 a gallon so the stations are actually selling it at a loss and are just increasing the prices as quickly as the law allows.Now they're saying that since Texas is a work at will state, there's nothing to stop your employer from firing you if you refuse to show up because you're busy with the hurricane damage.   There is a law that protects your job if you were in a mandatory evacuation zone but most of Houston wasn't in such a zone but still got a lot of damage.   I certainly hope that the employers will not be that cruel.They just had a story on Ike in Indiana on the news.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:47 PM, angelbear1129@... wrote:Hi ,  I can't imagine the devastation that you are seeing, just seeing it on the news is terrible, living it would be awful...  When powers out here at stop lights, people don't know what to do either!  When the lights are out its an automatic four way stop, but people on the main roads think they can just whiz on through with no concern for anyone else's safety...  That would explain the gas prices I guess, its a shame though, I'm sure there are some that are still gouging prices in bad hit areas...  If generators are hooked up outside the home, how can they die from them???  It still gets into the house?  Ike came through Indiana and Ohio with a vengence too, of course not as bad as you in Texas, but like a tornado for here...((( Caring Hugs )))Helen  Hello HelenWe're down to one river flood warning so pretty much all the bayous have crested.  It's bad, there's trees down everywhere, the street signs downtown are all bent at 90 degree angles and most of the traffic lights are out (people here don't know what to do at four way stops),  the curfew has been pushed back to midnight.   So far they say that there's 38 related deaths, ten in the area but more people are dying from the portable generators now.  Here, outside of the city, people on acreage's are burning the fallen trees in big bon fires so the air was filled with smoke this morning.Gas is up because the refineries are here in Houston and they're all shut down, it'll take a while to start them up again; also without power, they can't pump any gasoline out of the holding tanks.   The oil companies are arranging to ship in gasoline from the middle east.   The Refineries are on the east side of town, which was the hardest hit part of town.They've discontinued the park and ride commuter buses for tomorrow, I guess today's run was too difficult for them to keep on schedule, local service will still be running Thursday.I'm really surprised that Ike is still a cat 1.   It was a cat 2 when it hit us just 1 mph short of being a cat 3.   Usually these hurricanes die off to tropical depression strength really fast once they hit land.    I still can't believe how loud and strong that wind was, you see it on TV but it's something else in real life.I've found that you can buy MRE's and they last about ten years, works out to about $3 for a meal, side and dessert.   Something to look into for the next hurricane season.   They say that FEMA will pay for the generator if there's a medical reason for it.   Being a CHF diabetic patient, I'm supposed to remain in air-conditioning as much as possible and insulin needs to be kept under 86 F.   They require a Doctor's claim which shouldn't be a problem.   Of course, I suspect they will only pay if I had to buy one because of a prolonged outage while the area was a  declared disaster area.   It's a declared disaster area but I did not have a prolonged outage so I don't need to buy one and when it is a disaster area, where do they expect people to buy a generator?   Wouldn't it be better to buy them before hurricanes when there's actually some to buy? but of course then FEMA won't pay for it.   Maybe if I incorporate a holding company to own the generator and then when I do need it during a hurricane, sell it to myself or better yet just arrange the ownership/sale thing with a friend or neighbour.   They should at least allow you to submit a claim for the generator that you had once purchased in the past and needed to use during the disaster.   It seems that FEMA is just rewarding people for being unprepared.Regards, "When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

well one week or not at least you guys have stuff has I have said try have house fire where your a renter your left out in the dark even though you have nothing nothing survived you have no place to live thank god for family tell we found our new place. but then we had an empty house and we furnished our self so they can do it on there own they don't need all this stuff and free money I didn't get any I was left on my own even red cross wouldn't pay for a motel room so the first night I paid for it

Re: JOHN__

Thank God to hear that you're safe. I'm surprised that FEMA supplied the area with that amount of items. I live in Florida and WE'RE told to keep enough supplies to keep us going for THREE DAYS!! We are NOT to expect any assistance for three days as those are the days they're search and rescues primarily. I was upset to hear a woman complaining about only receiving enough supplies for one day and not for the entire family. She explained how she was accustomed to her house with air conditioning and her televisions. During Hurricane NO ONE came to help until one leader asked Where are the Troops?!! Then we received a lot of assistance, but not in all of the effected areas. This was almost a week later and everyone was on their own to survive. I wonder why other areas expect immediate assistance, but we're required to wait for three days. We never receive MRE's and not always do we receive water or ice. Pleased to hear you back online. Hugs Love & Prayersette

[Guest guest]

well one week or not at least you guys have stuff has I have said try have house fire where your a renter your left out in the dark even though you have nothing nothing survived you have no place to live thank god for family tell we found our new place. but then we had an empty house and we furnished our self so they can do it on there own they don't need all this stuff and free money I didn't get any I was left on my own even red cross wouldn't pay for a motel room so the first night I paid for it

Re: JOHN__

Thank God to hear that you're safe. I'm surprised that FEMA supplied the area with that amount of items. I live in Florida and WE'RE told to keep enough supplies to keep us going for THREE DAYS!! We are NOT to expect any assistance for three days as those are the days they're search and rescues primarily. I was upset to hear a woman complaining about only receiving enough supplies for one day and not for the entire family. She explained how she was accustomed to her house with air conditioning and her televisions. During Hurricane NO ONE came to help until one leader asked Where are the Troops?!! Then we received a lot of assistance, but not in all of the effected areas. This was almost a week later and everyone was on their own to survive. I wonder why other areas expect immediate assistance, but we're required to wait for three days. We never receive MRE's and not always do we receive water or ice. Pleased to hear you back online. Hugs Love & Prayersette

[Guest guest]

well one week or not at least you guys have stuff has I have said try have house fire where your a renter your left out in the dark even though you have nothing nothing survived you have no place to live thank god for family tell we found our new place. but then we had an empty house and we furnished our self so they can do it on there own they don't need all this stuff and free money I didn't get any I was left on my own even red cross wouldn't pay for a motel room so the first night I paid for it

Re: JOHN__

Thank God to hear that you're safe. I'm surprised that FEMA supplied the area with that amount of items. I live in Florida and WE'RE told to keep enough supplies to keep us going for THREE DAYS!! We are NOT to expect any assistance for three days as those are the days they're search and rescues primarily. I was upset to hear a woman complaining about only receiving enough supplies for one day and not for the entire family. She explained how she was accustomed to her house with air conditioning and her televisions. During Hurricane NO ONE came to help until one leader asked Where are the Troops?!! Then we received a lot of assistance, but not in all of the effected areas. This was almost a week later and everyone was on their own to survive. I wonder why other areas expect immediate assistance, but we're required to wait for three days. We never receive MRE's and not always do we receive water or ice. Pleased to hear you back online. Hugs Love & Prayersette

[Guest guest]

try live on mres all summer I used to work wild land fire well still do just not on the line unless there are close fires since I am married and have a 6 month old but you what lots of mre's and if those who fought to save our country the true solders the ones here defending our country the firefighters can eat them then those who luxury house got hurt can eat thyme.

Re: JOHN__

Hello Helen

A pod is a FEMA Point of Distribution. Basically they set up a number of sites where you're expected to line up for a bag of ice, drinking water and a box of MRE's. Kroger is also setting up sites where they're handing out bags of ice and drinking water for free. I don't know if the people in the mansions are bothering to line up at the POD's but that one POD being in the middle of a very rich neighborhood is just unbelievable.

MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) were developed for the armed forces, they're prepared food that do not need to be refrigerated and they don't need to be rehydrated like freeze dried foods. They're supposed to be actually very good, probably better than those frozen dinners. Then again a Banquet frozen dinner costs about 90 cents while a MRE with side and dessert costs about 3 dollars. Still it's tempting to buy some. Of course, I could just go out and line up for a box of twelve meals. My sister buys them because of the earthquakes in Hawaii and mixes them in with their regular food so that they don't have any older than two years old.

I'm sure that distributing the supplies is a good thing but it does upset me that people aren't able to do without for a longer period of time. When we were children, my mother would talk the butcher into giving her the scrap meat for free and would make buns out of flour and yeast, that way all they had to buy was the flour. During the summer, my mother would have a huge vegetable garden and during the fall we had to help harvest the vegetables. She would purchase eggs from the Hutterites because they would be much less expensive and they would be fresh, once she bought a chicken and butchered it herself. I'm certain that having had to do with so little is what makes me so mad with the lines of SUV's with obviously well fed people collecting the emergency goods, that and when they complain about how little it is. I'm certain that my mother could've made those twelve MRE meals last a month with a family of five and probably has with less yet they had that lady on TV complaining about those twelve meals not being enough for her family of four for more than a day.

Regards,

On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:07 PM, angelbear1129aol wrote:

, what is a POD??? I figured out MREs are food boxes...

Are the mansions getting these food boxes too??? If so, unbelievable.

I buy something extra every week when I get grocery's and keep my pantry as full as I can, its just the fear of being with out food I guess... When I was little and after my Mom died, there was 6 of us kids and me being second oldest at the ripe old age of 9 had to take care of all the baby's and little ones, sometimes my Dad wouldn't come home for days on end and we had no food in the house, luckily the 2 baby's went to live at our gramas and the other 4 of us ( 5,8,9,10yrs old) would get to eat lunch at school, we had to work in the cafeteria to get it free, I worked 2 shifts cause I didn't think my little 5yr old sister was big enough to do that heavy work and they allowed it... The weekends were a little more harder, but if it was springtime we ate dandelion greens and if the chickens were laying we had eggs... When our Uncle was in town from driving truck he would stop in and check on us and he always would bring us a bag of groceries, so I guess all in all we were ok, it was just when the pantry was totally empty and being kids with no adult around we got pretty scared at times... Sorry for going down memory lane, but I think if people really put their minds to it they could survive on their own more than they think, its usually just the fear of being with out... Just my Opinion! )

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."

Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.

[Guest guest]

try live on mres all summer I used to work wild land fire well still do just not on the line unless there are close fires since I am married and have a 6 month old but you what lots of mre's and if those who fought to save our country the true solders the ones here defending our country the firefighters can eat them then those who luxury house got hurt can eat thyme.

Re: JOHN__

Hello Helen

A pod is a FEMA Point of Distribution. Basically they set up a number of sites where you're expected to line up for a bag of ice, drinking water and a box of MRE's. Kroger is also setting up sites where they're handing out bags of ice and drinking water for free. I don't know if the people in the mansions are bothering to line up at the POD's but that one POD being in the middle of a very rich neighborhood is just unbelievable.

MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) were developed for the armed forces, they're prepared food that do not need to be refrigerated and they don't need to be rehydrated like freeze dried foods. They're supposed to be actually very good, probably better than those frozen dinners. Then again a Banquet frozen dinner costs about 90 cents while a MRE with side and dessert costs about 3 dollars. Still it's tempting to buy some. Of course, I could just go out and line up for a box of twelve meals. My sister buys them because of the earthquakes in Hawaii and mixes them in with their regular food so that they don't have any older than two years old.

I'm sure that distributing the supplies is a good thing but it does upset me that people aren't able to do without for a longer period of time. When we were children, my mother would talk the butcher into giving her the scrap meat for free and would make buns out of flour and yeast, that way all they had to buy was the flour. During the summer, my mother would have a huge vegetable garden and during the fall we had to help harvest the vegetables. She would purchase eggs from the Hutterites because they would be much less expensive and they would be fresh, once she bought a chicken and butchered it herself. I'm certain that having had to do with so little is what makes me so mad with the lines of SUV's with obviously well fed people collecting the emergency goods, that and when they complain about how little it is. I'm certain that my mother could've made those twelve MRE meals last a month with a family of five and probably has with less yet they had that lady on TV complaining about those twelve meals not being enough for her family of four for more than a day.

Regards,

On Sep 17, 2008, at 9:07 PM, angelbear1129aol wrote:

, what is a POD??? I figured out MREs are food boxes...

Are the mansions getting these food boxes too??? If so, unbelievable.

I buy something extra every week when I get grocery's and keep my pantry as full as I can, its just the fear of being with out food I guess... When I was little and after my Mom died, there was 6 of us kids and me being second oldest at the ripe old age of 9 had to take care of all the baby's and little ones, sometimes my Dad wouldn't come home for days on end and we had no food in the house, luckily the 2 baby's went to live at our gramas and the other 4 of us ( 5,8,9,10yrs old) would get to eat lunch at school, we had to work in the cafeteria to get it free, I worked 2 shifts cause I didn't think my little 5yr old sister was big enough to do that heavy work and they allowed it... The weekends were a little more harder, but if it was springtime we ate dandelion greens and if the chickens were laying we had eggs... When our Uncle was in town from driving truck he would stop in and check on us and he always would bring us a bag of groceries, so I guess all in all we were ok, it was just when the pantry was totally empty and being kids with no adult around we got pretty scared at times... Sorry for going down memory lane, but I think if people really put their minds to it they could survive on their own more than they think, its usually just the fear of being with out... Just my Opinion! )

((( Caring Hugs )))Helen

"When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate."

Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.