Pristine_Condition
Member
There had to be something keeping me away from WrassleGAF, and College Football GAF... Well, this is what it was:
A view of the fire from Austin.
When the fire broke out, I was lounging on my couch, laptop on my belly, reading GAF. The power in my house flickered a bit, then went out. I didn't think much of it, because it was very windy outside from the tropical storm that blew in, but sadly didn't leave the rain it promised my drought-stricken state, and I thought, "Oh, some power lines may have touched somewhere and kicked off a transformer."
When the power didn't return, I called the power company. The message on the machine said "No power outages have been reported in your neighborhood." I hung on to the phone for like 30 minutes, waiting to leave a message, or get through to customer service, but the opportunity never came. I thought "fucking Labor Day Weekend..."
A little while later, I decided to go out and get some fresh air, because the house was stating to get stuffy from the lack of AC. That's when I saw a huge cloud of smoke, drifting over the sky just to the south. I knew that was bad. I live in the middle of an area of Texas called The Lost Pines, a strip of giant Loblolly pines that really don't seem to belong in that area of Texas, hence the name. Well, drought conditions, living in a forest, smoke...that's a bad combo.
I never received an evacuation order. There was nothing on Austin's fabulously terrible "news" stations on the radio. I had no idea what to do, or where to go. I had only been living in the area a little over a year. I did know my parents, who are retired and live nearby, and I were going to probably have to make a decision quickly.
The winds from that tropical storm that never gave us rain was producing 40MPH winds.
A huge problem loomed when I drove down to the end of the one road that connected our neighborhood to the highway. The only road out. My heart sank. There was fire down there. On both sides of the road. Big fire. Smoke you could never see through. There was no way to know if there were trees fallen in the road or what.
So when I got to my parents the questions were obvious...do we leave? And where do we leave to? I have two parents in their 70s. My mom has a bad knee. She's not going to be able to run, if the road is blocked. She's not going to be able to hike out of the forest toward the lake with no trail, either.
But after a while, with the fire getting bigger, and the smoke staring to blow from behind us now, from the north, it became clear that we had to leave and we had to take our chances with the road.
In hindsight, we did so many things wrong. We grabbed so little of what we should have grabbed. Things that can't be replaced...things the insurance companies won't be paying off. We grabbed so very little, I think, because we were refusing to believe it would all be gone. We were wrong.
I got in my car, and my Dad and Mom got in their truck, and we headed out. Toward the raging fire.
I sped ahead, since I figured if something happened, if there was a burning tree blocking the road, I might be able to ditch the car and run back before my parent's got there. Luckily, the road was clear, except for smoke, which often meant actually driving completely blind.
Driving through that was surreal. Like something out of Backdraft. When you could see, it was horrifying, when you were totally surrounded by the thickest smoke, and flying blind, it was just like diving into a muddy lake, except occasionally, the whole panorama in front of the windshield would turn bright yellow or orange. At some point, a drove through what must've been the hottest part of the fire, a vortex of air that pushed the car from side to side violently before I escaped it.
Soon enough afterwards, I reached the end of the road, and the highway. Even that was all on fire, as the fire had already jumped the but at least I could see, and go fast. It's a four-lane, scenic highway, with a median in the middle where more pines grow. All the trees were on fire.
The median is protected by a guardrail made of stubby timbers that the railing is attached to. All the timbers that hold up the guardrails were on fire, so the guardrails were rails of licking flames. I'm kind of ashamed to say that just for a moment, I allowed myself time to say to my self "that was cool" as I sped down the road to safety.
When my parents hooked back up with me down the road, we looked back and got an idea of the scope of the fire. We knew a lot of lives would be changed forever. We just hoped we would be spared.
We drove to Austin to stay with family. Over the course of the first day, no real information was getting out. We finally managed to register with the county so they could give us information, but information really never came. The fire was too much, and we were not alone. Six other fires had popped up in other surrounding areas, including north of Austin. There weren't enough firefighters, and the winds made getting in front of the fires too dangerous.
After two days of nothing, my Dad and I formulated a plan to sneak into our neighborhood using the paths cut into the forest for high tension electrical transmission lines. We just had to find out what had happened to our homes. As we hiked, we prepared for the worst...
As we walked further, the ground became white from all the ash, and metal buildings lay crumpled like linens on the ground
This is what was left of my house...
It was still on fire in places.
There's nothing left to even pick through. It's all gone.
My parents' little retirement dream home looks exactly the same. Totaled. Worse than losing my own home, all my stuff, my photo gear for my business, my portfolio and all the originals...knowing that I was going to have to call and tell my mom the news, and show her the pictures, was the worst feeling I've ever had in my life.
But somehow, in the middle of all that destruction, there was a tiny patch of green, in the vegetable garden:
And all twelve of my ducks.
I have no idea how they survived. they had that one bucket of water there, and this child's swimming pool:
...which the ducks liked to use to take turns and have dips in to keep cool this summer. Somehow, it held water still, and I have a feeling it played a big part in their survival.
The ducks are not out of the woods yet (quite literally) we had to leave them there, so I hope no predators find them until we can return. We did manage to find some neighbors who were not burned out who let us have some foods to leave for them to feed, and a case of fresh water we left for them in their black bucket. I hope to return tomorrow to get them out of there. They are all any of us have left, so I figure it's a sign that I should take care of them... Yep. Lucky ducks. These guys are so lucky, they'll never be on my dinner plate.
...
Anyway, there's probably going to be about 1000 other people that will have lost their homes in the fires in Texas. It sucks, but at least we're alive.
Oh, and one more thing. I did the Google search for "Texas Fire" before I posted this, to see if this was a topic yet. And I came across this.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=209405
That was the last thing I needed to see. Fuck you, krypt0nian.
A view of the fire from Austin.
When the fire broke out, I was lounging on my couch, laptop on my belly, reading GAF. The power in my house flickered a bit, then went out. I didn't think much of it, because it was very windy outside from the tropical storm that blew in, but sadly didn't leave the rain it promised my drought-stricken state, and I thought, "Oh, some power lines may have touched somewhere and kicked off a transformer."
When the power didn't return, I called the power company. The message on the machine said "No power outages have been reported in your neighborhood." I hung on to the phone for like 30 minutes, waiting to leave a message, or get through to customer service, but the opportunity never came. I thought "fucking Labor Day Weekend..."
A little while later, I decided to go out and get some fresh air, because the house was stating to get stuffy from the lack of AC. That's when I saw a huge cloud of smoke, drifting over the sky just to the south. I knew that was bad. I live in the middle of an area of Texas called The Lost Pines, a strip of giant Loblolly pines that really don't seem to belong in that area of Texas, hence the name. Well, drought conditions, living in a forest, smoke...that's a bad combo.
I never received an evacuation order. There was nothing on Austin's fabulously terrible "news" stations on the radio. I had no idea what to do, or where to go. I had only been living in the area a little over a year. I did know my parents, who are retired and live nearby, and I were going to probably have to make a decision quickly.
The winds from that tropical storm that never gave us rain was producing 40MPH winds.
A huge problem loomed when I drove down to the end of the one road that connected our neighborhood to the highway. The only road out. My heart sank. There was fire down there. On both sides of the road. Big fire. Smoke you could never see through. There was no way to know if there were trees fallen in the road or what.
So when I got to my parents the questions were obvious...do we leave? And where do we leave to? I have two parents in their 70s. My mom has a bad knee. She's not going to be able to run, if the road is blocked. She's not going to be able to hike out of the forest toward the lake with no trail, either.
But after a while, with the fire getting bigger, and the smoke staring to blow from behind us now, from the north, it became clear that we had to leave and we had to take our chances with the road.
In hindsight, we did so many things wrong. We grabbed so little of what we should have grabbed. Things that can't be replaced...things the insurance companies won't be paying off. We grabbed so very little, I think, because we were refusing to believe it would all be gone. We were wrong.
I got in my car, and my Dad and Mom got in their truck, and we headed out. Toward the raging fire.
I sped ahead, since I figured if something happened, if there was a burning tree blocking the road, I might be able to ditch the car and run back before my parent's got there. Luckily, the road was clear, except for smoke, which often meant actually driving completely blind.
Driving through that was surreal. Like something out of Backdraft. When you could see, it was horrifying, when you were totally surrounded by the thickest smoke, and flying blind, it was just like diving into a muddy lake, except occasionally, the whole panorama in front of the windshield would turn bright yellow or orange. At some point, a drove through what must've been the hottest part of the fire, a vortex of air that pushed the car from side to side violently before I escaped it.
Soon enough afterwards, I reached the end of the road, and the highway. Even that was all on fire, as the fire had already jumped the but at least I could see, and go fast. It's a four-lane, scenic highway, with a median in the middle where more pines grow. All the trees were on fire.
The median is protected by a guardrail made of stubby timbers that the railing is attached to. All the timbers that hold up the guardrails were on fire, so the guardrails were rails of licking flames. I'm kind of ashamed to say that just for a moment, I allowed myself time to say to my self "that was cool" as I sped down the road to safety.
When my parents hooked back up with me down the road, we looked back and got an idea of the scope of the fire. We knew a lot of lives would be changed forever. We just hoped we would be spared.
We drove to Austin to stay with family. Over the course of the first day, no real information was getting out. We finally managed to register with the county so they could give us information, but information really never came. The fire was too much, and we were not alone. Six other fires had popped up in other surrounding areas, including north of Austin. There weren't enough firefighters, and the winds made getting in front of the fires too dangerous.
After two days of nothing, my Dad and I formulated a plan to sneak into our neighborhood using the paths cut into the forest for high tension electrical transmission lines. We just had to find out what had happened to our homes. As we hiked, we prepared for the worst...
As we walked further, the ground became white from all the ash, and metal buildings lay crumpled like linens on the ground
This is what was left of my house...
It was still on fire in places.
There's nothing left to even pick through. It's all gone.
My parents' little retirement dream home looks exactly the same. Totaled. Worse than losing my own home, all my stuff, my photo gear for my business, my portfolio and all the originals...knowing that I was going to have to call and tell my mom the news, and show her the pictures, was the worst feeling I've ever had in my life.
But somehow, in the middle of all that destruction, there was a tiny patch of green, in the vegetable garden:
And all twelve of my ducks.
I have no idea how they survived. they had that one bucket of water there, and this child's swimming pool:
...which the ducks liked to use to take turns and have dips in to keep cool this summer. Somehow, it held water still, and I have a feeling it played a big part in their survival.
The ducks are not out of the woods yet (quite literally) we had to leave them there, so I hope no predators find them until we can return. We did manage to find some neighbors who were not burned out who let us have some foods to leave for them to feed, and a case of fresh water we left for them in their black bucket. I hope to return tomorrow to get them out of there. They are all any of us have left, so I figure it's a sign that I should take care of them... Yep. Lucky ducks. These guys are so lucky, they'll never be on my dinner plate.
...
Anyway, there's probably going to be about 1000 other people that will have lost their homes in the fires in Texas. It sucks, but at least we're alive.
Oh, and one more thing. I did the Google search for "Texas Fire" before I posted this, to see if this was a topic yet. And I came across this.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=209405
That was the last thing I needed to see. Fuck you, krypt0nian.