Laynes' Line

Wednesday - yesterday our cargo trailer was parked to the left of this picture; today it is lake front property! The tire marks are our hasty retreat with the trailer. The tan building in the center is our storage building getting ready to flood again. The good news is that the state and county have an article in the paper today stating that something needs to be done about this flooding. It is frustrating for us, but there are people who have been out of their houses since July 24! Our building is still wet and a few items still need to be gotten out. Anything that cannot be carried through 6 inches water or placed up on shelves is still there. We have 2 cargo trailers worth of supplies for Mexico that are being kept in the chapel, because we cannot get into the storage building to ready it for the new load. Anyone have pontoons for a house trailer?

Tuesday arrived with news for us: the property is nearly as flooded as it was the first of the month. Notice the truck in the center of the picture? THAT is the highway!

A crazy thing happened over the weekend: water rising!! Monday the water was up but still manageable.

August 23, 2008 Guess what? Thunderstorms and heavy rainfall for the weekend. Saturday 2-3 inches arrived and Sunday was about four inches of rain. TODAY, Monday, another 2-3 inches arrived and had drizzled until 5:00 PM. The bottom picture is right outside the front door of the mission with water ready to flow inside.

August 20, 2008 INSIDE the storage building at last. Not all is lost, although some things are a total loss. Amazingly, very few items were on the floor of the building. After getting the boxes out, it will have to be sanitized.

August 16, 2008 At last, dry land appears! Although it still has a long way to go, there is hope.

August 15, 2008 Still a long way to go.

August 15, 2008 The county or state finally approved 6,000 gallon tank trucks to truck away ??? millions of gallons of water. The area is miles square that is still under water. Dolly hit July 23, 2008!

August 13, 2008 Finally we are able to keep the doors open to try to dry out the insides. Even today, we had to close up due to rain showers.

FM 506 is the main North-South highway between La Feria and Santa Rosa. More than a half mile of water!

August 8, 2008 This is a game field and volleyball court under about 12 inches of water. The drainage canal runs along the back (left) and the side of the property (right). Tio Cano Road is just beyond the green grass and is closed a little farther to the north.

August 7, 2008 We were not in Texas for Dolly, but we soon saw the aftermath, two weeks later. Gary is retrieving another type of "dolly" to empty the trailer. The water got as high as 2 1/2 inches inside our storage building.