Texas Look Out!

[Worth1]

Anybody recall what happened during the great Galveston flood?
It was horrible.
All of those people washing ashore.

The dead bodies were so numerous that burying all of them was impossible. The dead were initially weighted down on barges and dumped at sea, but when the gulf currents washed many of the bodies back onto the beach, a new solution was needed.[30] Funeral pyres were set up on the beaches, or wherever dead bodies were found, and burned day and night for several weeks after the storm. The authorities passed out free whiskey to sustain the distraught men conscripted for the gruesome work of collecting and burning the dead.[21] More people were killed in this single storm than the total of those killed in all the tropical cyclones that have struck the United States since. This count is greater than 300 cyclones, as of 2009. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.[31]

One year in the 30's the Colorado river got on a rise and washed up a bunch of graves.
The people in the little community including my father had to re-bury them.
Back then there was no government FEMA.
About all they did is give the people shots that had to do it.
If the community didn't do it, it didn't get done.
Some of those good old days weren't good at all.

Worth

[Rockporter]

Hubby and I just got home from Rockport. We went over to our friends place and they lost everything there. It is so sad. We wore our N64 or something like that tiny particle masks we have for woodworking to go inside and salvage what we could. Their entire ceiling is gone. It was still flooded in front of the place so I drove sideways to the porch steps and got out then hubby climbed through the passenger side of the truck to get out. Then we gathered things to put inside the truck and when it was full I got back in and backed the truck to the steps and he loaded the back with all the furniture he could fit in. We did this twice. Wanted to go back but the mosquitos started coming out so we couldn't go back in. It will rain beginning tomorrow and I don't think there is going to be anything left we could get for them.

We were able to salvage some of their wood furniture and I will be washing up a bunch of their clothing and things. She makes dresses for charity out of pillowcases and I found all those she had finished. I will wash them up and see if they are ok or not. I found the baby blankets she made for charity too. I found lots of plastic containers that were ok, just wet on the outside. Lots of pics in those. I found so many mementos that were ok and I was able to pack up her white cabinet with all her blankets and towels in it. I will just be washing everything for them.

They evacuated to Bracketville TX before the storm and are in their 70's. My heart breaks for them. We moved all the furniture we could save into our storage and brought home his bookcase that his father made for him so my husband can work on it and repair it. His father made it for him so it must be many years old. I am so saddened for them, my heart is breaking. This is the woman I take to big town (Corpus Christi) when she needed things for the blankets and dresses. She always wanted to have lunch at Olive Garden when we went. Before she left she called me and said her daughter just mailed her a $50 gift card for Olive Garden for her birthday and she said to me, "We can go to Olive Garden for lunch soon". I had taken her for her birthday the last time we went shopping. Bless her heart, she is such a giving person. I am so saddened.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Rockporter

Hubby and I just got home from Rockport. We went over to our friends place and they lost everything there. It is so sad. We wore our N64 or something like that tiny particle masks we have for woodworking to go inside and salvage what we could. Their entire ceiling is gone. It was still flooded in front of the place so I drove sideways to the porch steps and got out then hubby climbed through the passenger side of the truck to get out. Then we gathered things to put inside the truck and when it was full I got back in and backed the truck to the steps and he loaded the back with all the furniture he could fit in. We did this twice. Wanted to go back but the mosquitos started coming out so we couldn't go back in. It will rain beginning tomorrow and I don't think there is going to be anything left we could get for them.

We were able to salvage some of their wood furniture and I will be washing up a bunch of their clothing and things. She makes dresses for charity out of pillowcases and I found all those she had finished. I will wash them up and see if they are ok or not. I found the baby blankets she made for charity too. I found lots of plastic containers that were ok, just wet on the outside. Lots of pics in those. I found so many mementos that were ok and I was able to pack up her white cabinet with all her blankets and towels in it. I will just be washing everything for them.

They evacuated to Bracketville TX before the storm and are in their 70's. My heart breaks for them. We moved all the furniture we could save into our storage and brought home his bookcase that his father made for him so my husband can work on it and repair it. His father made it for him so it must be many years old. I am so saddened for them, my heart is breaking. This is the woman I take to big town (Corpus Christi) when she needed things for the blankets and dresses. She always wanted to have lunch at Olive Garden when we went. Before she left she called me and said her daughter just mailed her a $50 gift card for Olive Garden for her birthday and she said to me, "We can go to Olive Garden for lunch soon". I had taken her for her birthday the last time we went shopping. Bless her heart, she is such a giving person. I am so saddened.

The silver lining behind this is she or they are giving people so it wont hurt them as much as it will selfish people.
Stiil sucks though because these are the people that seem to get hit the worse.

I remember the almost annual house floods in Angleton.
If it weren't for the plastic totes we would have lost a lot of old stuff.
To this day it baffles me as to why people didn't add another foot to the concrete slabs to stop this water from coming in the houses.
Darn place looked like Cambodia during the rainy season there sometimes.

[Barbee]

Originally Posted by Rockporter

Thanks so much for the info on smoking out the mosquitos. Worth is right though, it would kill me. I have pulmonary hypertension and my heart only operating at 39%. Thanks all for the the great ideas on that. I will send those to my friends who can handle smoky bbq's.

Thanks so much for the offer of bug spray. I received two PM's on it too. I am looking online for some at Walmart to have my neighbor pick up in San Antonio since he is coming back from there. Same guy who wants to party, lol. I will surely let you know if it is not available. I don't have amazon prime but someone PM'd me they did and could send it within a couple of days. I'll let you all know. Thanks so much for the offer.

I also have Amazon Prime. If you need something, dont be afraid to ask.

[Rockporter]

So far so good. Found this at Lowe's-Has the concentrate we want and the fogger he wants. He can pick it up on his way home tomorrow. We'll buy four, we can split the body sprays and each take the yard treatments we want, lol.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Cutter-Mosq...ellent/4764739

[greenthumbomaha]

I have been through a flood/high wind situation (and perhaps PaulF was touched by this too) My entire welcome back post was wiped out so I'll just say this for now-

Rockporter, have you looked into electronic mosquito devices. I'm trying to get on to my local library to read Consumer Reports for their repellent reviews. In the meantime, I googled "Homemade Mosquito Repellents" and there are some that look like they might be worth a try.

- Lisa

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by greenthumbomaha

I have been through a flood/high wind situation (and perhaps PaulF was touched by this too) My entire welcome back post was wiped out so I'll just say this for now-

Rockporter, have you looked into electronic mosquito devices. I'm trying to get on to my local library to read Consumer Reports for their repellent reviews. In the meantime, I googled "Homemade Mosquito Repellents" and there are some that look like they might be worth a try.

- Lisa

Thanks for the info. We have two Dyna Traps that seem to work well. Problem is these skeeters have had a full week to grow out in the yard while our Dyna Traps were in the garage for the storm. We have to treat the yard to get the eggs under control and it will be a long haul before we can step outside without being covered in hungry mosquitos. There are mud puddles, ponds and side drains that are still full and a great breeding ground. We'll just keep moving along and do the best we can to get it all under control. Thanks so much.

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by Barbee

I also have Amazon Prime. If you need something, dont be afraid to ask.

Thanks so much!

[HudsonValley]

Originally Posted by Rockporter

We were able to salvage some of their wood furniture and I will be washing up a bunch of their clothing and things. She makes dresses for charity out of pillowcases and I found all those she had finished. I will wash them up and see if they are ok or not. I found the baby blankets she made for charity too. I found lots of plastic containers that were ok, just wet on the outside. Lots of pics in those. I found so many mementos that were ok and I was able to pack up her white cabinet with all her blankets and towels in it. I will just be washing everything for them.

Wishing you and your neighbors all the best as you clean up and rebuild. Re: your generosity in laundering your neighbor's things, I wanted to mention that I've had fairly good success salvaging moisture-damaged towels, blankets, etc. using Concrobium after a roof failure over a linen closet -- Lowe's carries it, at least in my areea. The manufacturer recommends this method: http://www.concrobium.com/how-to-fig...aces/clothing/

[Gardeneer]

I would suggest spraying the walls, floors ( affected by the moisture ) with Clorox spray to kill the mold. Get fans running to circulate the air too.
We were flooded last year during hurricane Mathew. Part of my house was full of water fo rdays. We had mold on everything.

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by HudsonValley

Wishing you and your neighbors all the best as you clean up and rebuild. Re: your generosity in laundering your neighbor's things, I wanted to mention that I've had fairly good success salvaging moisture-damaged towels, blankets, etc. using Concrobium after a roof failure over a linen closet -- Lowe's carries it, at least in my areea. The manufacturer recommends this method: http://www.concrobium.com/how-to-fig...aces/clothing/

Thanks for the tidbit. Our Lowe's is closed for damage and don't know when they will open. The closest one from that is about 28 miles in Corpus Christi. I suppose I could have my neighbor pick some up tomorrow afternoon when he pics up the yard spray for us. Right now I am using 9% vinegar in all loads with soap. I thought I would need to double wash them but everything is coming out great. Baby blankets, material, the clothes I could salvage, and now I am waiting for the dresses to go in the wash. Those and the tooth fairy pillows.

I can salvage the pillows on the top of everything. They aren't wet, so washing them should be fine. The rest of those pillows I will just toss out. About 5 dresses that were hanging up weren't barely wet but the majority of them (about 18) were in a box and saturated. So, I think I will soak those for a long while and wash them a couple of times if needed. Everything so far is looking really good. I am so happy about that.

Update:

I added that to the list for my neighbor at Lowe's. Sounds like great stuff to use on their furniture we just put into the storage unit over there in Rockport. So, on Tuesday I'll get over there and spray it all down since the neighbor won't be home until the evening time. Thanks for the information.

[HudsonValley]

My husband and I have used Concrobium on wood, vinyl siding, tile, brick, and asphalt shingles, in addition to fabrics. It didn't seem to work that well on brick, but we've been pleased otherwise. (I prefer it to bleach and Lysol because I'm sensitive to chemical smells; it doesn't really have a detectable odor.)

Glad to hear the washables are coming clean, and best of luck with the furniture, etc.!

[Rockporter]

The dresses all did well on two washes and are in the dryer now. The other baby blankets I washed did not do so well and are washing again. I am hoping to get the staining out of these blankets. If not, I will use the concrobium on them as well.

[Rockporter]

I cannot salvage the tooth fairy pillows. They are just too damaged. The bottom ones saturated the top ones and I don't feel it is safe to wash them and distribute them to children.
I found five of the dresses after two washings still have a mildew smell so I will use some of that cleaner on them tomorrow night. One has a yellow stain on the dress, I might not be able to salvage it. Otherwise there are about 30 dresses in total I was able to salvage and she can send them on to the charity.

I do realize I was not able to locate all the baby ric rac I had just purchased online for her about 1 week before the storm. The box may have been under something that I could not lift because of broken glass or just too much moisture. These were big rolls of 25 yards each of baby ric rac .25" that I found online for a really great deal of about $3.99 each. Such a deal and much cheaper than buying from Joann's. She couldn't get many colors at Walmart but it was only about .20 cheaper for each small packet at Walmart. Oh well, I will try to find more another time for her. I also found at the same place online some of the velcro she needs for the bibs. It was 80" for around $2.79 each. I also was not able to find all of the single fold wide bias tape she uses either.

It's just so sad to me. She enjoys sewing so much, and she helps so many charities out that it breaks my heart to see her lose things. We brought her sewing machine here but sadly I think it will be all rusted inside. It was on her sewing table that was severely water damaged and it had a thick layer of water on top of it the sewing machine was sitting on. Her mother gave her that sewing machine when she was just a teenager. It still sewed very well. She took it in once per year for a tune up.

These are the dresses she makes. Only she uses baby ric rac or a pretty lace on each one. She also puts two pockets on each one. She works so hard making these dresses. She used to buy the pillow cases for $1-$2 each at the castaways thrift shop in Rockport. She always used pillow cases with pretty designs on them. The hem of the pillow case is the hem of the dress.

https://www.pillowcase.net/p-26-pillowcase-dresses.aspx

I also found in her stash some 100% cotton towel bibs she would make for the old folks home. She just bought two towels at Sam's Club the last time we were in Corpus and got 8 bibs out of it. She was so happy.

Ugh! My heart is so broken for her. I hate Harvey!

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by Rockporter

The dresses all did well on two washes and are in the dryer now. The other baby blankets I washed did not do so well and are washing again. I am hoping to get the staining out of these blankets. If not, I will use the concrobium on them as well.

Update: Two blankets I cannot get the staining out so I will try the solution on them as well.