We have been captivated by TV coverage of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma the last few weeks. \u00a0A friend from the Houston area and a cousin from Beaumont were here during Harvey.\u00a0 They could not return home until last week.\u00a0 Fortunately, their homes were unharmed.\u00a0 The devastation has been painful to watch.\u00a0 I am having trouble even imagining that much water.<\/p>\n
I grew up in tornado country.\u00a0 As a child, I worried because we did not have a storm cellar.\u00a0 The grandmother of one of my cousins had a little lantern which was the only item salvaged when a tornado demolished her home in Clyde, Texas.\u00a0 I heard the story many times of her home blowing away while she was safe in the storm cellar.\u00a0 This particular storm was in 1938.\u00a0 Fourteen people died and over forty were injured.\u00a0 A freight train and boxcars overturned.\u00a0 Clyde had an earlier tornado in 1895.\u00a0 Another tornado in 1950 left five people dead.\u00a0 The last tornado in the little town was in 1989.\u00a0 There is an old joke that no one in Clyde is going to heaven because the Lord is coming in a cloud and everyone will be in their cellars.<\/p>\n
We moved to Harlingen, TX, shortly after Hurricane Beulah.\u00a0 People were still pointing out the damage. It was as though they measured time before and after Beulah.\u00a0 We lived approximately forty miles inland from South Padre Island.\u00a0 When the first hurricane started toward us, Ken and his co workers were at a conference in San Antonio.\u00a0 The families proceeded to get the houses secured and depart for San Antonio.\u00a0 Our son, Kevin had an incubator.\u00a0 He had hatched eggs and raised the chicks.\u00a0 Our car was loaded.\u00a0 A neighbor was to care for the dogs.\u00a0 I told Kevin to open the chicken pen gate so the birds could fly into trees or take shelter wherever they needed to.\u00a0 He adamantly informed me that he was not going.\u00a0 He had hatched the eggs and raised those chickens.\u00a0 He was staying behind to care for them.\u00a0 He was not about to shirk his duty to his chickens.\u00a0 I explained that he had no choice.\u00a0 We were not taking the chickens and he was not staying behind.\u00a0 Quite an argument followed.\u00a0 He was very upset by the time I finally got him into the car.<\/p>\n
It had already begun to rain when we left.\u00a0 It was eerie driving past closed and boarded up stores, buildings and houses.\u00a0 Fortunately, the storm caused little wind damage or flooding.\u00a0 The chickens were safe and happy to see us when we returned.<\/p>\n
We left the area and moved to Georgetown, TX. \u00a0Fifteen years later we returned to Harlingen.\u00a0 We boarded windows and prepared for several more hurricanes before leaving the area in 2000.\u00a0 We are back in tornado country again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have been captivated by TV coverage of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma the last few weeks. A friend from the Houston area and a cousin from Beaumont were here during Harvey. They could not return home until last week. Fortunately, their homes were unharmed. The devastation has been painful to watch. I am having trouble […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[218,77,76],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-things","tag-clyde-tx","tag-hurricanes","tag-tornadoes"],"yoast_head":"\n