ok, only horse related because I live here

[Westwood Farms]

The Night Before Christmas

Our Town

2005

Tis the night before Christmas and all through the town

Debris of all kind is stacked in a mound

Houses are beat up, trees are not there

The landscape is different and curiously bare

Fences are gone and the dogs have got out

Insurance agents are nowhere about

Mold in its grandeur is lining the walls

Inside the cabinets and all through the halls

Moms are exhausted and daddies are spent

They're paying their house notes and now paying rent

FEMA is long gone, the Red Cross has split

Searching for new towns disasters have hit

The children are restless as they lay in their beds

Troubled thoughts filling their heads

Can Santa find them amid all the rubble

Or will he think it's just not worth the trouble

Then out of the night comes the sound of small hoofs

Prancing and pawing atop the blue roofs

Though Santa's landmarks were not where they'd been

The shine of the trailers guided him in

He managed somehow to deliver the toys

To all the deserving good girls and boys

And they heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight

"It takes more than Rita to mess up this night!"

And that sums it up folks, better luck next year to all of us on the Gulf Coast!!

Oh, and please visit my album, I have 2 pages of Rita Pictures. This is not all of them, and they do not do this storm justice. Click on the picture for a bigger view!!

http://wwmhf.tripod.com/my_photo_album/

 

[AppyLover2]

Great poem!!

 

[Westwood Farms]

I totally forgot to say, this was by an unknown writer, I sure wish I were this clever.

Again, thanks for all your support to all of us through the storms of 2005.

( and I am glad to know someone enjoyed the poem)

 

[Deanna]

I have a lot of freinds that ask why we stay here and my response is most everywhere you live there are some kind of natural disasters but ours we can see in advance prepare for and run like wildfire! Alicia, did you see the one on KOGT of the brown center (we were married here) in orange it is an ariel shot and it shows the Magnitude and the other I thought was neat because it looks so perfect with the grass still attached. The land fill off 1442 and the make shift on I-10 here in orange have you been by lately I know they have one for ya'll somewhere in beaumont but have you seen all the trees...I need to get a picture it is overwhelming mounds and mounds of trees waiting to be put into the shreddar trucks work from daylight till dark ever since Rita it is a shame all these trees wasted and so many beautiful ones. Unreal I now pay a lot more attention to those hurricanes since we have been through one.

Things have been back to "normal" for us about two weeks after rita hit it is an experienc I would like to forget but they say next year will be worse watch out flordia they always come your way.

 

[midnight star stables]

I is a lovely poem - put I am sorry for every thing that has happened to you.

 

[Tobey]

Those pictures are really something! and Deanna-wow! The areal (sp?) shot!

I'm sorry for what you all had to go through. It is so unconceivable to me. At the same time facinates me too. Guess I'm a little twisted?? I was in a tornado 2 years ago, in a vehicle. Maybe that's why I'm facinated.

wwmhf--I really like Hannah!

 

[hairicane]

Very good poem! We live in florida aka Hurricane Central so I have lived with storms all my life. But we were just in all the gulf coast states a few weeks ago on our trip to get our new stallions. I went right through your area and it was terrible!!! So many trees downed that it seemed like fully half of all the trees were gone. Every time we stopped for gas it seemed the gas stations were being rebuilt, they were pretty much all damaged. And so many blue tarps everywhere. And saddest were the campgrounds. All the folks with no home now were living in tents, some only had a tarp and were living out in the open with their stuff in garbage bags. And we wonder why horse sales are slow. Just think of all the people that might have bought all kinds of non essential things, like horses, and now they dont even have a place to live. it made me very thankful to have a home. Now if I could just get insurance on it I would be really happy.

 

[Horsefeathers]

LOL....How TRUE!!! My two year old was telling me the other day he wanted to Bob the Builder tools so he could "cut trees".

Chris

 

[Songcatcher]

I must say I passed over this topic several times before I clicked on it. I'm glad I finally did. Wonderful poem and interesting to see the pictures.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a better New Year.

 

[Deanna]

Hurricane, ya'll get a lot of hurricanes but they are not this bad? I honestly have not really paid too much attention when hurricanes came and went but with this actually hitting us it has made me MUCH more aware of them, and I hoesntly wondered and thought how do peopel in flordia live with this every year? Yours are not this bad ever time they hit?

I am TERRFIED of tornados! I have nightmares about them I guess becuase I can not run from them and we have had them in our areas I have never seen on and dont wish to. If I did not have the kids I would have stayed her and am curious what went on while we were gone and what were the poor animals left behind and the wild ones thinking!

 

[Westwood Farms]

its funny, Deanna, I have lived through, and stayed through all but Rita. And I totally agree with you, we can see them coming, but tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and all of the other things mother nature throws at us? No way, I am staying right here...And getting away, even in the hours of traffic we sat through. It was well worth it. Several people who stayed told me it was like demons circling around their homes. What wind, and the thought of demons is terrifying. I remember that years ago when I stayed through a much smaller storm. I was a kid, and I remember it vividly.

My life has completely changed since Rita, Family is much more important, and I cherish every moment of it.

On a different note, Savannah's favorite movie is Twister, you should watch it, then you would really be having nightmares. I am scared of Mice...

 

[Horsefeathers]

I don't know really where y'all evacuated to, but we didn't go near far enough North... only to Newton... in the past the hurricanes always missed us, or where down graded so much by the time they got to us we always stayed... Next time I'm leaving the STATE!!! LOL... It IS different now... I left town a few days ago and it was so refreshing to see roads that didn't have debris piled 6 foot high on the sides of the road... it was nice for a while...

Chris

 

[hairicane]

Deanna, Yes here in florida we get a LOT of hurricanes and so many come right at us and swerve at the last minute which drives us crazy but we are happy when they do turn away. But yes some are not so bad but others pretty much flatten everything in their wake. But the last 2 years we have had so many category 4 and 5 storms. I dont ever remember having so many serious storms as we had in 04 and 05. We had enough weeks without electric, phone etc that we now have a generator and a room air conditioner if we are in that situation again.

 

[Westwood Farms]

We ended up in Oklahoma for 5 days, and even after that, almost 3 weeks with no electricity. We were lucky, when the call for contraband ( I think is the term) we were in the lead, We followed HWY partol a long way right outside of Warren. But it took like 8 hours to get to Warren. For you folks out there with no clue where these places are, Warren is a little over an hour from Beaumont. So it only took us 20 hours to get th CHekotah, Ok. And a very relaxing 8 to get home, just to sleep in a tent in 100 degree weather.

But, my family was scattered all over the state, many ended up evacuating, like you said Chris, not far enough. And it was impossible to get in touch with them. I never actually talked to any of my immediate family for almost a week, but we had that ever important contact person, an uncle in Kansas we were all able to get in touch with.

Oh, and Christine, I cannot wait to see my shirt(or whatever Carlene ordered me, you can never tell about her, LOL)..and Savannahs too. Thanks ahead of time.

the airport here is still piled up soo high with the trees and limbs. I wish I could find that picture to share. It makes the dozers look like tonka toys, the mounds are so huge. They say 40% of the debris has been picked up, and this is a little over 2 months later. And don't ya'll love the blue roofs?

 

[Horsefeathers]

LOL...it's like our own little Horricane Rita therapy group! I'm gonna try to get those shirts done in the next day or so... Carlene is such a hoot! Don't know what I'd do without her these days!

As for Rita pics, I went on Google Earth and looked at hurricane satellite pictures and there is another web site...Hurricane Rita Website that you can look at too.... pretty neat.

 

[Deanna]

Hurricane, if we had that bad of hurricanes year after year literally flattening our home everytime there is really no clean up time then yes in that situation i would leave. We only evucated for one other hurricane here and it was nothing andrew. We have lived here for 47 years and though some of those years i may have been too young to remember i can not remember anything comeing here with this magnitude. I feel so much for you hurricane as i know next year they will come floridas way.

Yes those we know who stayed said they will not again and are changed people but I am a curious person and want to know and the traffic would stop me from doing it again!!!! people with guns raming others with their cars stranded with no gas food or water, sleeping on the side of roads trying to get out of town it was insane and people were just being plumb ignornant..... but with children and my animals i will get them to a safe place. And Horse feathers we origanlly went to our lake place but then heard it was turing so up and went to my cousins in Corsicana...the firedepts were in Jasper even closer they swore one time they heard the roof get picked up and slammed back down....where we were we saw nothing but one of the ladys who went with us had a blackberry wich kept me in contact with many friends and all of us with KOGT which was a god send! Him and Mark were just wonderful keeping us utd on everythign.

 

[Westwood Farms]

I think Carlene should jump on this bandwagon, and tell her tale./ I would love to hear both of your stories, too. I know we have found out backyard again, but Carlene has not. She needs to share, . Deanna you were just plum lucky. What about you, Christine?

I gotta figure out how to navigate Christines cool website, I wanna see china...

 

[Horsefeathers]

Well, we didn't come out so lucky... lost just about everything... the horses are still in DeRidder, but will be coming home shortly (YEAH!!!!!!!). EVERYTHING we own fits in a 10x10 ministorage now.... ( a new one I might add as the old one...Orange Mini Storage... was pretty well blown away). Oh well, it's all replaceable... I had posted some pictures, I'll post some different ones this time...Where we were staying at in Newton, it took two days to "cut" our way out. We were staying there in a brick house, on a foundation, and I remember the house literally shaking at least twice.... that's a scary feeling. We had taken the horses up there with us... after daybreak, the wind was still cutting up pretty bad the horses got out and made a couple of laps around the house and circle drive, then came up on the porch when they saw us calling them and weathered out the rest of the storm until the winds subsided... then they went out and grazed in the pasture across the way...

Deanna... like you were saying, we have only ever evacuted for one other Hurricane, it too was Andrew... that turned out to be nothing... but it only takes once... I am a curious too, and knowing what I do now would have loved to have stayed (after getting the horses and children some where else just in case) to see... but put me in the same situation... I'll probably leave again... I ain't that brave!!

 

[carlenehorse]

Well here is my story, we lost 32 trees on our 3 acres and every tree that came down was hugh. We have three holes in our roof and the tree went through the living room soaking my love seat and couch. We have a deck over our pond and it is now standing up straight. The only way you can get to the back of the property is with a 4-wheeler. Four trees fell all around my horse stalls and there was no damage to the stalls. My miniature colt who was 3 months old at the time got a really bad case of rain scald. All the horses were ok but we also raise birds and I lost between 100-200 birds. That was a tough one. Our lives are slowly getting back to normal. It will take some time before anything feel right again.

I know alot of people who had it a lot worse than we did so we are very thankful.

Carlene

 

[Deanna]

Most everyone we knew had minimal damge hole through the roof but all fixable nothing like some of the things you see just completely destroyed. I feel VERY lucky as we just closed on our new house 2 weeks prior to rita....that is why we were able to get out so quickly at the last minuite everything was still packed lol and we were scheduled to close on our old place the thursday everyone evuacted so obvisously that was put off and I was worried if that place got tore apart would she still want to buy it or what........I went to meet Rhonda today and on the way out I took pictures of the dump site on 1442 here a couple shots of the tree debris not the full effect since I was taking them from the road.....

Horsefeathers I see you did as I did trying to drive down the road taking pictures as you came home.

Carlene this is the first time I have heard from you since Rita are you living in the house? Sorry you lost all your birds, are the horses back home?