Everyone else in my neighborhood has power except my side of the street. Some neighbors across the way are sharing power but my neighbors are drug dealers (yeah, I have video of them selling pills and weed to people in cars and kids on bicycles and yeah, I gave the video to the cops just to be told that it’s “their culture” and there is nothing HPD can do about it, ’cause they’re here illegally and Houston is a sanctuary city — although our mayor swears otherwise.) Anyway, I’d rather choke than ask them for jack. If that sounds all bitter and stuff, too bad. I have no use for people who prey on the sick and the gullible just to put money in their pockets, whether those low-lifes wear cut-off jeans or Armani suits. I’ve had a gut-full of both. To hell with them. Literally.
Anyway, the power situation is just very sucky. Last time this happened was during Alicia and we were without power on this side of the street for 3 weeks while the other side went on with their lives.
Doesn’t help that my job has no power and I can’t work. No money coming in is going to get ugly quick and no, FEMA doesn’t help with that. I’m scared. So I’m probably bitchier than usual. So I’ll spew it here rather than at my family. Elder parents are hanging in, as is my very bewildered little dog. It could have been so much worse and I feel petty for whining, but I’m human enough to admit it.
Everyone is doing the best they can, including FEMA, finally, after the mayor told them he wasn’t taking the blame for their slow response and said he could prove it. The governor wimped out and passed buck but what else is new. He’s not done anything useful for this state since he took office. We’re just paying him (very well) to show up, I guess. He certainly seems to think so.
The mayor of Galveston looks very tired but, despite the Look and Leave miscalculation of yesterday, they are doing the best they can in a very very tough situation and I pray she can hang in there.
From what I’ve seen, Hurricane Ike is as big a disaster as Katrina, but no one outside of Texas seems to be overly concerned. That’s okay, though. We Texans pride ourselves on our self-sufficiency. Give us some gas to get there, we’ll bring the nails and dig a hammer from the kitchen drawer and get it done. When the word went out that first responders were going without food and water because FEMA was AWOL, Houstonians with nothing but radios started hauling boxes of food and water to assist the assistors. So much was brought, the excess was driven to hard-hit areas and distributed to the neighborhoods door-to-door. We’ll make it. And we won’t be sitting on our backsides three years from now whining that the government is suddenly expecting us to pay our own rent.
When things settle down, I intend to get the aforementioned little dog a shirt that reads: “I survived Hurricane Ike and I bit it’s butt.” ‘Cause she did. She’s a Texan, too.
