Okay,

When we set out on our vacation our goal was not only see family and friends but to make the trip special.  Give the boys something they’d remember forever. We made some cool stops along the way, but I think the events of the last few days here in my hometown will overshadow the memories we made on the way here.

Tropical Strom Dolly began to be the subject of everyone’s conversation here in south Texas on Monday the 21st.  Still unsure if the storm would become a full-blown hurricane or not we went about our business as usual. Tuesday would bring the news that everyone hated to hear, Dolly was now a category 1 hurricane and headed straight for the Lower Rio Grande Valley . . . US.

Our plans of visiting South Padre Island would have to wait for now, it was time to stock up on the necessities water, canned goods, bread, batteries, candles. Although Dolly was only a category 1 it still had the potential to grow and grow she did. By the time Dolly hit land on Wednesday she was a category 2.

I was born in 1967 the year that hurricane Beulah ripped through this area and although I don’t remember any of the details the stories of the flooding and roofs being ripped off and telephone poles snapping like tooth picks made me worry for the well being of my vacationing family.

The boys were freaked as well. They witnessed first hand a city preparing for the worst and praying for the best. The sandbag frenzy in the city square, people taping up their windows and bringing in anything that Dolly could set in flight, the lines at the gas stations, put a realism on the situation that showed on their little faces.

The lights went out 6:30 pm on Wednesday night the wind gust by that time were down to 85 miles per hour, and we were riding it out it true hurricane party fashion at my mother-in-laws. We convinced the boys that everything would be okay and they finally went to sleep to the sounds of Dolly screaming outside our door.  Before we knew it; it was morning and all was calm but the destruction was visible everywhere.

We spent all day yesterday helping my brother clean up the debris from the downed trees and limbs that landed in his yard. Today the flooding has gone down but power is still out to over twelve thousand people just here in my home town, wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t 98 degrees with 80% humidity. Over all we are all safe and sound and all of our family is doing great everything else can be replaced or fixed. As for our vacation…we’re still here I’m still running and Dolly will forever be a part of the Brown family