From our RV in Beaumont, Texas

Ted and I returned to the Beaumont area last night to find much of the city and surrounding bergs still without electricity. Bevil Oaks, where Martha, Ted's sister, lives has no power and the Entergy Web site said that full power would be restored no later than October 6. We do have a generator built into the RV so we are better off than many of our neighbors.

My publisher kindly provided a chartered plane for Ted and I to fly over Bolivar Peninsula today to see for ourselves the damage done there by Hurricane Ike. It is almost impossible for me to describe the sights or the impact it has on one whose home was there and who has friends among the missing.

Rumors continue to fly and are being confirmed by different sources and each appears to be more horrible than the last. We do know for certain that an "order to vacate" the entire Peninsula was issued night before last and that marshall law will begin tomorrow where National Guard and other military will go door-to-door in an attempt to identify the missing and/or the dead. So many of the "old-timers" simply refused to leave their homes again. They were worried about looters and many did not really believe Ike would be that bad. It was!

I was told late this afternoon by a business owner on the Peninsula that the number of missing is now 504 and that the body count continues to climb, although all national media and even local media cannot report that. We do understand that the officials and the county leaders do not want to speculate and they say they will not have proof until the count is completed by the military. We are hearing of people that have been found dead, some floating in the still evident water. One sheriff's deputy told me last night that it is awful there and that the body count is much higher than we can imagine. He also mentioned that there is a real problem with the wildlife habitat and that it is literally turned upside down. One fear surrounding the identifying of the dead is that the alligators are coming out and eating the bodies so the urgency continues to grow daily. It has also been reported that more than 1,500 head of cattle are dead on the Peninsula and that health risks are severe in this matter.

One story surfaced today that seemed utterly impossible, but turned out to be quite true. It seems that a man living on Crystal Beach had a full-grown lion as a pet and when he was made to evacuate, he refused to leave without his lion, so he took it to shelter at the local Baptist church with at least five other individuals. The lion did just fine chained in a room until he ran out of food and some of his co-evacuees grew fearful. A vet went down today and tranquilized the large cat and they were able to get it out of the church without incident. I know this story to be true because we talked with a man who was on the plane.

Galveston Island is under mandatory evacuation after President Bush's visit there. Buses were taking some 20,000 citizens out of the city.

I do know for a fact, because we saw it with our own eyes today from the chartered plane, that there are strips of beach
front property that are stripped absolutely clean. It is as if huge bulldozers cleared the land for building. What is also incredible to observe is that there is no discernible pattern. The front row of houses might be gone, one standing in the second row and the third row completely bare. On one stretch of Crystal Beach, all of the houses were gone except for one lone sentinel standing on a point out into the Gulf. The beaches were swept clean in many areas and only a few spots of debris could be seen from our height in the surf. Water was beautiful with a slight north wind blowing.

The old Bolivar Lighthouse, that we could see out of our kitchen window, is sitting in the middle of lake now that was not there prior to the storm. It looks as though it survived another storm and is still standing tall.

When we got to the area where our house stood, there was nothing. I kept hoping to see a picture, a book, a shiny piece of jewelry, some dishes, anything at all, but I saw nothing but bare land. My little white Grand Am is sitting in the middle of a lake we never had before and we believe Ted's new lawn mower is resting beside the car. It looks as though the area were hollowed out and filled with still-standing water. Nothing else remains. In many cases you can see the concrete pads that houses were built on before Ike hit. Ted and others are convinced the high, unrelenting wind took our cabin down.

Many do not remember that we did not evacuate as such. We were in Atlanta for my Mom's funeral when the call for evacuation came. We were never allowed by law back on the Peninsula so what we own is what we had in our car for the trip to Georgia. We are more fortunate than many because Ted has the nice RV and a home in Amarillo should we want to go there. However, my life and my worldly possessions, as were many of his, were in the beach house, which was our primary residence since our marriage.

I do pretty well for long periods of time and then I remember one particular thing, a gift, a book of which I was especially fond, something I had written, a ring or a bracelet that someone gave me, my children's pictures, my wedding pictures or something else that pulls at my heart strings. Somehow in the back of my mind, I keep thinking, "We will go home soon and I will buy groceries, stock the kitchen and cook a big, good meal," and then it hits me, "Our home is gone."

God is always good and He is always God. I do not see the end picture in all of the things that have happened in our lives in the past 30 days, but I do know that He is faithful and He will not leave us, nor forsake us. Our bodies are weary, our hopes are a bit dashed and we are a bit unsettled, but we will survive and we will be happy again. We have each other, our families are safe and we are Texans! My brother-in-law, Bill Ladd, encouraged me tonight to read Psalm 71 and I have read it now several times. It seems fitting to me.

Until the next page turns,
Brenda

I have new photographs and will post them as soon as I can get them on the Web.