Heavy Rain, Sirens, Flooding

What a week we have had in this part of the world. Although by comparison to other cities in Texas and Oklahoma, we have been very fortunate.  There has been a lot of criticism after the tornado that hit Ciudad Acuna this past Monday with regards to the emergency sirens not being activated neither in that city nor in Del Rio.

Thursday night around 11:30 p.m. the alarms went off, first for about 20 seconds and a little while later for about three minutes, which seemed like an eternity. Of course they went off in the middle of a very heavy rain storm.  I wondered what it was announcing?  Tornado, hail, flooding?

Went online to find that I had no Internet connection.  Turned on the TV only to get a Temporary Loss of Signal on the screen...what the heck is one supposed to do in these circumstances?  To make matters worst at this late hour saw a bunch of cars, some speeding towards Del Rio (We live in the county).  This only added to the uncertainty and my stress level.

It is not like even if I knew the reason for them sounding the alarms that I would get in my car and head to town. The best we could do was take shelter in the bathroom or in my bedroom.  Mother said she was sleepy and she did not care what the emergency was...she was going to bed!

I went to my room and got my overnight bag that I keep packed at all times, my purse, flashlight and car keys in case we had to make an emergency exit.

Friday, I had to go to the doctor and the nurse told me that they sounded the alarms due to large hail that was headed our way but the strong winds blew away from Del Rio.

Around noon today, it had already started raining quite hard when the emergency alarms went off again. They sounded differently, so I am not certain since we live so close to Mexico if it was our alarms or theirs going off.

I know where the leaks in the house are located, I therefore have containers and buckets in place. Our neighbor and her daughter were in Del Rio when the storm started. When they got home they opened the door to a flooded house. There was more rain in the forecast for tonight even though it was later revised. Not wanting to take any chances they decided to stay with relatives in town.

During today's storm, again I could not go online!  I guess satellite Internet and/or TV is pretty worthless during inclement weather, which is when you rely on it most. Fortunately, there is light at the end of the tunnel and we will be drying off soon.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.


Cyber Journal Note

Message I received while trying to connect to the Internet:

Web acceleration client error (515.2). Upstream TCP Connection Establishment Timeout.  The Web Acceleration Client could not create a TCP connection with the web server or proxy server. Retrying the Web page may correct the problem