Nice Tree

Family obligations caused us to make a last-minute trip through Beaumont to Vidor last night. It’s surreal to be driving through a large American city on a completely undamaged interstate with National Guard checkpoints at every exit. Luckily for us, the checkpoints ended at Beaumont. All you residents of Beaumont, stay out! Or drive past to Vidor, turn around, and back-road it into Beaumont. As a resident, it would be your call. Not that I would advise you on how to circumvent the barriers the government has put up for your own safety. Not me. I wouldn’t do that at all. After all, you are certainly not smart enough to determine what a personally acceptable level of risk is and plan your travels back to your devastated home appropriately. The government says so, and the government is always never wrong.

The damage is immediately apparent once you get into Beaumont. Besides the amazing lack and/or wreckage of commercial and highway signage, trees are down everywhere. In many cases the trees are down on top of power lines. We saw two ginormous transformers sitting on the side of the I-10 frontage road. I’m guessing they were at one point attached to the collapsed structure right behind them. I don’t think power restoration is going to be a quick process.

On that note, I would like to thank the nice people from Michigan who came down with their cherry pickers to help. They had air mattresses and all manner of other things in their trucks, so I’m guessing they are sleeping in (or near) their vehicles. I appreciate the dedication and the assistance.