Hurricane Zeta

 Hurricane Zeta hit us directly in late October.  It was forecasted to be a Category 1 and after all the hurricanes we had in the Gulf this year, everyone was a little storm prep weary.  Nobody evacuated, most did not prepare with the same gusto in the beginning of hurricane season.  Everyone said the same thing, how much more can we deal with in 2020?  

So we did not prep much, we did not have days of non perishable food or tons of water.  We knew we would lose power for a bit, figured we'd have some wind and that would be it.  We were wrong.  Hurricane Zeta came in 1mph under a category 3.  We always evacuate for category 3 and above.  It was insanely loud and we lost power hours into landfall.  We did not get power back for five days.  It was intense.  The water surrounded our house and we had waves crashing into the bottom of the house.  God's grace and mercy kept us from having any water damage to the house.  We did move everyone up to the guest house to keep us safe as the water rose.  

We lost power early on so we hung out by lanterns.

Early on, before the water rose and we had to evacuate upstairs we heard a lot of trees come down.

These are all taken at dawn when Stephen and I ventured downstairs.

The shed had been floating in our yard about 25 feet away from it's foundation.

A lot of tree and giant limbs fell.  Miraculously no damage to our house or cars.

Debris lines from the waves, all of it is sea grass from the ocean.

The trampoline lost it's life in Hurricane Zeta.  It flew to the front yard and got crushed even though we had it anchored with cement blocks.

Lovers Lane was impassable.  We were trapped.  With no electricity and not as much food and water as we would have liked.  

The debris was unbelievable.  It took weeks for the cleanup.

But look!  The sun came out, neighbors and church friend's arrived to help and after days and days and days we removed all the debris.

The trampoline became a debris mover attached to a pickup.

Stephen managed to make us coffee over an open flame, thank God for small miracles.  

Love this guy so much.

Amelia and I were twinning during yard clean up in our Valpo gear.

Not many pictures with this cute guy.

We had friend's bring us meals (most of Ocean Springs got power back day 1 or 2) but our street had extensive damage so it took almost 6 full days.

Thank you Castlemans for coming to help us dig out!!