Thursday, December 14, 2017

Welcome to Wisconsin - home at last

I recently returned to Stevens Point from Rockport, Texas with my third and final load of our belongings salvaged from the storm. My closest estimate is that we now have about 40% of what was ours before the storm.

Not all was lost to the hurricane. The primary issue was a place to live. The house we were leasing required extensive repairs and it wasn't habitable. With Kim and the canines, plus one contentious feline, already in Wisconsin, the decision was made. We were very fortunate when all is said and done.

I haven't written much about my time in Rockport after the storm. Primarily because I was surprised how traumatic the experience turned out.

I arrived on Monday, August 28th to find our home standing, but severely water damaged. It appeared as though the roof lifted and the rain came in under the plates. The ceiling caved in the master bedroom with ceiling and water damage in the other. Walls of insulation, soaked with storm water make for mold potential of epic proportions. (Let alone the wood and drywall.)

I spent the first night sleeping in the driveway on a lawn chair. There was entirely too much traffic in the area, and none that I recognized. Key Allegro is a small sub-division and we tend to look after each other. I chose to recline with a double barrel 12-gauge across my lap and a 9mm in a shoulder holster for back-up. I hung a lantern from what was left of one of our trees and the traffic magically dried up. Surprisingly, I got a "thumbs up" from a local officer who happened by at 3 in the morning and noticed my set-up.

So many that lost so much in the storm, lost even more to looters and even the contractors hired to fix their homes. Such is the way of man; I was not surprised. I take a certain measure of satisfaction in having disrupted several individuals as I walked the island at night in the dark.

There is a measure of survivors guilt I hadn't anticipated. In reality, Kim and I lost nothing of significant importance; i.e. photo albums, paintings, memorabilia, works of art, clothing, etc. Others, such as my neighbor behind me had nothing left but one wall and the pilings for their home. The day before I left Rockport on November 21st, I drove the island we had called home since 2010. I located 62 sites where a home had already been demolished and counted dozens of others red-tagged as unsafe. It was a vary sobering experience - actually, depressing is more like it.

Rockport and Port Aransas will rebuild, as will the other small communities around her, but will never be the same. There is no industry there. It's about arts and crafts, vacations, fishing and summer homes. Almost every small business in Rockport was still closed when I left, 3 months after landfall.  I don't think a decade will bring back what was; it will never be the same. They WILL come back; the commitment is there and the will. It will simply be less than.

That may not be a negative. Many buildings needed to be updated to codes and some were just eye-sores. Rockport and Port Aransas will see life return, just slower that the local citizenry expects.

For now, they are in my thoughts; and someday, perhaps, they will be seeing us again for a visit.

Time will tell
Robert Ullrich
December 14,2017

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Robert Ullrich

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