Hi everyone! I haven't had time to even think about posting here. We live in Sienna Plantation in Ft. Bend County, Texas and mandatory evacuation was declared last Sunday night around midnight. We ended up evacuating the next day and tried to drive to Austin, Texas where we have family. We were following the route suggested by the Sheriff's office but could not get beyond I-10 from the south at Katy due to flooding. We kept trying other roads and not getting anywhere so we decided to return to a home where my DSIL was staying close to Sienna Plantation but we couldn't get back. So we looked for a shelter and the second shelter we went to had room for us. We are very grateful to Eagle Heights Church, Richmond, Texas for deciding at 11:00 am that day to set up and shelter. All of the items they got were from their small congregation and to the neighborhood surrounding the church. And it all happened within a few hours. Plus they fed us hot meals that were amazing, including BBQ, pulled pork, fried catfish and extra large broiled shrimp for lunch one day all home cooked and each large enough to feed the 250 people that ended up at this small church shelter. Of course they had favorite food items for the kids too. I have never seen so many air mattress, mountains of blankets and comforters, rooms full of bottled water, paper products, diapers and on and on. It was amazing to watch them worth tirelessly. And none of it was paid for by the Red Cross or any other agency, it was all donated by people living nearby.
We only stayed in the shelter for two nights when one of the roads to Austin opened up. So we have been here for two nights and hopefully since the Brazos River is finally crested and starting to go down we plan to drive home tomorrow. We are very thankful that our small home is still dry and even the road never had water on it. It turns out we live in the Northeast quadrant of the community and the drainage goes from the Northeast to the Southwest along the roadways. So we were dry while others had flooded roads sometimes to their doorsteps. And unlike Houston, not many homes actually had water in their homes. So our community is really lucky in comparison.
