Galveston, let's make lemons out of lemonade (actually pencils out of trees)

Hello all who may be still tuned (the financial thing kinda wrestled the news away from Galveston kinda quickly). Many houses have been worked on, but not many completed. Between walking around town and driving on Broadway I have been paying attention to the trees. The city has done a beautiful job on the medians of Broadway (few parts left to put bricks on but each end of every median has new oleanders and shrubbery planted and mulched with automatic watering systems installed). They have been and are still watering every live oak. Unfortunately despite best efforts it looks like less than half are budding. I walked around the East End Historic District and every deciduous tree (trees with leaves) is daad (dead as a doornail). This area had several feet of brackish water for about 36 to 48 hours contaminating the soil and it burned many plants. After the storm we were lucky as there was little to no rain to come in through the damaged roofs but we were unlucky as there was little to no rain to wash the salt away.
Ok, so in order to help the economic state of things I vote to use the wood constructively. Take a tree or two and make Galveston pencils and other doodads. Sell the rest of the trees to wookworkers. Live oak (note to those not from the area - that is the name of the tree, not their state of being) is a marvelous wood, very strong and good to machine. these trees are also, unfortunately for us but good for woodworkers, about 100 years old. You really can't get great wood like that these days. Old, great wood with historical significance should sell for a decent price. That's something the City could use. Oh, and since I thought of it I only have two stipulations. I want a piece (a small branch'll do) and I want a part of the money to go for new planting and bicycle lanes first, then other stuff. Why bike lanes? Being green is in, that's all.
Good luck Galveston, and remember that you are not alone.

Sorry, have been tired and tied up

Well, the past few weeks have certainly been exciting!!! Have hooked up and / or had lots o'stuff installed - hot water, washer / dryer, furnace and a/c. Still, many without electricity (they were close to the Bayous and had a surge destroy their home). People are coming back in little bits. Many are still in hotels and other dwellings (rented and friends). This certainly was bad and I don't think that folks elsewhere have seen the whole picture (other newsworthy items affecting them) and the lack of coverage makes it difficult to judge.

The large central debris field on Broadway and 59th street has been cleared and cleaned. There were stories about it possibly being a spot to put a FEMA trailer park. Visited the Post Office trailers, they will be here a while.

With the massive cuts going on at UTMB (while it may not look that way from the reports that they are laying off 3800 from about 12000, and since about 800 have already left or retired, they only have to decrease by about 3000) the island will be slower to recover. The layoffs affect the hospital side only essentially (research and the hospital prison are relatively unaffected due to their stable funding) which has a cadre of just under 5000 personnell. Go to the Galveston Daily News and you can also google utmb layoffs to find more info.

I will try to get out and photograph a few things and post them as well as keep up a bit better. I hope that you all are okay, and remember that you are not alone :).
Thanks

Stuff and please post personal points on disaster preparedness...

Hello there. We all have alot of it. We accumulate, despite not liking it, not using it, or just not remembering it. People will be logging hundreds of items (if they are "lucky" enough that the "stuff" did not just get washed away) on each of their insurance claims. You see evidence of it all around in all of the piles. Some things were probably loved and used frequently, other things just cataloged and passed into the street.

Notes to self: Every once in a while, at least, walk through the house with a video camera slowly and capture everything. Also make sure that everything that you put away in your "emergency" kits not only are in a safe place (i.e. not near ground level, not under other things and only in plastic containers) but also have been played with (a disaster is the wrong time to figure something out or realize it is broken. Also make sure that you focus on things that really mean something to you so that you don't realize you should have focused on other things with your time.

What tips do you have for disaster preparedness? Please leave a comment. NOTE: You can leave a comment anonymously, you don't have to sign in if you don't wish.

Remember that you are not alone.