Monthly Archives: August 2020
Hurricanes, Past and Present . . .
Hurricane Laura Update . . .
First off, Jan and I want to thank everyone for the phone calls and emails from friends concerned about our safety.
And as I said in last night’s blog (actually 2am this morning), as far as we were concerned here south of Houston, about half way between downtown Houston and Galveston Island, there was no hurricane at all.
No wind, no rain, no power outages, and bright and sunny this morning.
And despite all the dire predictions of devastation from winds and storm surge over the seawall in Galveston, they pretty much escaped also.
On the island, some tidal flooding creeped into low-lying streets and wind shook the trees, but the island had virtually no damage, Mayor Pro-Tem Craig Brown said. Brown is acting as mayor.
Of course, unfortunately for the people in East Texas/West Louisiana, that wasn’t true. They got hit hard.
But one thing I haven’t not been able to reconcile is how they’re figuring the storm’s wind speeds. I was watching the Weather Channel around 1am when Laura came ashore. All evening they had talked about Laura’s 140-150 mph winds as the storm eye-wall crossed the Louisiana coast line.
But the Weather Channel was regularly displaying a screen with wind speeds and gusts of all the surrounding towns, including Cameron and Lake Charles directly in the path of the storm.
And I never saw any speed higher than 100 mph, or a gust higher than 117 mph. Note that the screengrab below is as the eye is coming onshore.
So what’s up with that.
But whatever the wind speeds, it was devastating to the Texas-Louisiana border area. Our prayers go out to them.
At Least 103 New Coronavirus Cases in 8 States Linked to South Dakota Motorcycle Rally
The above headline was posted on MSN’s website bemoaning this WuFlu outbreak. with this snarky comment . . . “many of whom did not wear masks and clearly violated social distance orders.”
But you have to read 8 paragraphs down into the article before you are told that these 100+ cases were among the more than 450,000! people who attended the Sturgis Rally.
And as far as I can find out, there were no deaths among these 100+ cases.
But we can’t vote in person, right?
In 2009 we were getting ready to head east out through Canada for a 3 week trip out to Newfoundland and back before coming back into the U.S.
August 27, 2009
Charrgge!
Today is our last full day in Maine and the US for a while.
Tomorrow we drive about 2 miles east and we’ll be in Canada. Then we have about a 185 mile trip to Moncton, NB. We’ll stay there for 3-4 days while we explore the area around there, including probably an overnight trip to Prince Edward Island, while leaving the rig parked in Moncton.
After that we’ll see if we need to do anything about dodging Hurricane Danny.
Today was a ‘get the rig ready to roll’ day. I added a charge wire to from the rig to the toad. This will keep the battery in the truck from running low while we’re traveling. Apparently in real hilly country, the auxiliary braking system in the toad operates so much that on long travel days it runs the battery down. The charge wire supplies power from the rig to the toad to keep its battery charged.
When we enter Canada tomorrow we’ll lose an hour since we’ll be now be in Atlantic Time.
More tomorrow from Canada…
There’s always a lot of Gate Guarding stuff this time of the year, since from 2012 to 2017 we were on a Gate at this point.
August 27, 2013
A New Record . . .
Our first full day on our new gate and we’ve already set a record. We had 141 vehicles come though today. Our previous high score last year was 128.
We’re on a fracking gate, but they also have a couple of rigs getting ready to “spud in” (start to drill) back there too. I suspect once they get all their equipment moved in and the set up done, things will quiet down a bit. I hope.
The GGS guys came by to fill our 550 gallon water tank this morning, a little after I went to bed (7am). In the rush to get us over here and set up, they brought it over empty, and we just used our rig water for a day. A little later, Austin, our GGS support guy, came by to replace our vehicle alarm bell, which had died overnight.
Remember those old service station bells with the hoses you drive across? Well that’s what we have, with the hoses stretched out about 100 feet in each direction. When you have a problem, normally it’s a leaky hose, but this time it was the unit itself. Austin carries spares of pretty much everything, so it was a quick fix.
While he was here, I had him turn up the juice a bit on the generator. With both AC’s running, we were getting 108 volts on one leg and 110 on the other. Pretty low and not good for the AC’s. And if we turned the dryer on at the same time as both AC’s were running, it dropped the 108 voltage below 105, which means my Progressive EMS would kick off because the voltage was too low. I had him turn it up to about 120 which should be fine.
Later, when I get a chance, I’ll go out and play with the frequency setting on the generator. It’s running at about 58.5 Hz according to my Kill-A-Watt, which means our bedroom projector digital clock runs slow. I’ll just take my Kill-A-Watt out to the generator and tweak it a little and get it closer.
Speaking of the Kill-A-Watt, every RV’er should have one of these.
P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
They’re less than $20 and show voltage, amps, watts, frequency, and KWH. It’s on my Ten Things Every RV’er Needs list for the seminars I used give.
Sometime in the next few days, after things settle down here, I’ll probably go to the same every 2-4 days posting schedule that I did last year. It’s hard to do much with “a lot of vehicles came in and a lot of vehicles left”.
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Thought for the Day:
One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. — Randall Jarrell
More Gate Stuff
August 27, 2015
Shut Down . . .
For Tonight.
A little after 7pm, an hour after I went to sleep, the night Company Man came by on his way out, telling Jan that they were shut down for the night, and would resume at 8am tomorrow morning. Too bad we didn’t know we were going to have the night off a little earlier.
It sure would be nice if they went to a twelve hour shift for a while.
One thing really nice about this gate, well, maybe this area, is the weather. And by weather I really mean the temperatures. Unlike south Texas, where it was 107° on one gate today, our high was 91, and the low last night was 63°. In fact it was cool enough, that because of the slight breeze, I came in and got a long sleeve shirt and a pull-over cap
The landowner came by a couple of days ago and said if we wanted, we could hook up to the water well that’s about 50 feet out in front of our rig.
It’s coming up from about 450 feet, it’s ice-cold, and tastes really good. And it’ll save Jamie from having to bring us water as well as diesel. The only problem is that I don’t have quite enough hose to reach it, so I’ll pick up another 50 foot one when I go into town, probably tomorrow.
Unlike several past gates, here we’re far enough away to not have to worry about noise and fumes.
We can see the site from here, but not hear it or smell it, which is really nice. We’ve been so close at other gates, including last year, that I could literally throw a rock and hit the rig.
As it stands right now, I’ll go into Carthage tomorrow to scope out the town, i.e. find the Wal-Mart, and pick up some supplies. I’ll probably also bring back lunch for us.
We still don’t know when the actual fracking will start. I don’t think they do either.
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Thought for the Day:
“There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the stupidest tourists.” – Yellowstone park ranger
And Still More
August 27, 2016
Any Minute Now . . .
We’re finally starting to settle in to Gate Mode as far as our sleeping hours.
A lot of couples do a 12 on, 12 off kind of thing, but that just doesn’t work for Jan and I. We split our shifts up with Jan coming out at 7am with breakfast and then relieving me. I sleep from 7 to about 11, and then I come out with coffee and sit a while.
After doing Internet Stuff, I come back out about 1pm and then work until 6pm, while Jan does her computer stuff and naps. Then at 6pm Jan comes out with supper and then she works until 11pm. Finishing up, I then work until 7am.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat.
So I work 13 hours and Jan works 11, and I sleep about 4 hours twice a day. A lot of people ask about this sleeping schedule, and all I can say is that it works for me. I can do it 3 or 4 months at a time with no problem.
The rig spent most of the day loading drill pipe onto the derrick, letting it hang off the side so it’s ready to go as fast as they drill.
One thing that was neat was that two truck drivers remembered us from 2 years ago at our North Zulch gate, which is only about 15 miles from here.
Our Internet here is still pretty sucky, but before I fool with putting up our Wilson booster, I’m going to see if I can get on the site’s WiFi. It’s showing 5 bars so it should be a good connection, but I’m going to wait for them to start drilling before I ask.
We had 74 vehicles come in the gate today, a lot of them trucks coming in to pick up equipment, cranes, bucket trucks, etc., that were used to set up the rig and aren’t any longer until it’s time to tear it back down.
That’s about it for today. More tomorrow.
Thought for the Day:
I miss the days you could push someone in the pool without worrying about their cell phone.
And Finally, A Little More Hurricane Stuff
August 27, 2017
Now That’s More Like It . . .
Well, after yesterday’s lack of rain here in Conroe, about 1am this morning that all changed.
Like you’d flicked a switch it started pouring down, heavier than any time in the last couple of days. And it continued the rest of the night and into the daylight. If it’s not pouring down hard, it’s still a steady heavy drizzle, and it really hasn’t stopped.
All of the news anchors keep comparing this storm and the resultant flooding to Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. But it seems like everyone has forgotten about Tropical Storm Claudette in July 1979.
Never a hurricane, Claudette came into the Gulf after crossing over Cuba. Then proceeding across the Gulf of Mexico, it came on land near Houston and stalled. For the next couple of days rain just poured down without stopping.
On July 25th It dumped 42” of rain on Alvin, TX, southwest of Houston, a record for 24 hour rainfall in the US that still stands to this day. Many other cities south of Houston had totals over 30”.
Here’s a traffic cam photo at I-610 just south of I-10 east of Houston
Those traffic signs are normally 20 feet above the road, which shows how deep it is over the roadway.
About noon I decided to drive around the park to see how it was faring around here. I was curious about the low area along the small creek, (or ‘crick’ as we say in Alabama) as you come down the hill from the Ranger Station.
But except for the orange cones, which several trucks drove right past, everything looked good.
Lake Conroe was definitely over its banks.
I thought that might be an RV in the flood waters, but it turned out to be a pontoon boat with too tight an anchor rope. Hope it doesn’t get pulled under as the water rises.
I heard later in the afternoon that the COE was going to start releasing water from the lake to lower the level.
This Great White Egret seems to be the only guy that’s happy about all the rain
When I got back to the rig I checked my homemade rain gauge. I set this kitty litter bucket out just after midnight Saturday morning and I don’t know when it overflowed, but the bucket is 16” tall so there’s been at least that much rain here since then.
I dumped it out about 2pm, so we’ll see how much more we get.
Last minute update before I posted the blog at 11pm. We’ve had another 5 inches of rain in the last 9 hours.
A little before 3pm we got a text message from the Lake Conroe TT saying that there was a break in the 8” water main feeding the park and that the water would be off until further notice. Glad I topped off our fresh water tank the other day.
Just now, about 7:30, we got another text message saying the water line break had been repaired. Yay!
There have been dueling recommendations between state and local authorities about whether or not to call for a mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas of Houston. Especially since the last evacuation of Houston was an unmitigated disaster all by itself.
In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the New Orleans area. With around 1800 fatalities attributed to the storm, it was a real shock to the Gulf Coast. So when just a month later, Hurricane Rita initially made a beeline for Houston, mass panic ensued.
Originally forecast as a CAT 5, the strongest Gulf storm on record, Rita scared the crap out of a lot of people. And about 2.5 million of them headed north out of Houston on I-45, all at the same time, creating the largest gridlock in US history.
More than100 people died in the evacuation. Drivers were stuck in traffic for more than 20 hours, and heat stroke struck down dozens. A bus carrying nursing home patients caught fire, and 24 died. People ran out of gas just sitting in the gridlock and fights broke out along the roadway. It was described as ‘a hellhole.’
And then, still out in the Gulf, Rita downgraded itself to a CAT 3 and made a 90 degree turn to the right, missing Houston almost completely, ultimately coming on land around the Texas/Louisiana border. Down in the Clear Lake area, we got no rain whatsoever, leading to this famous photo.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Thought For The Day:
Everyone who wants to be the first in line for a new mRNA vaccine for CoVid that has unknown long-term side effects, raise your hand!
Three Gates and A Hurricane . . .
Well, as of about 2am Thursday there’s been no rain, no wind, no nothing really, here.
Yet.
And looking at the weather radar, it’s a pretty tight storm and doesn’t show any rain bands reaching out anywhere close to us, even as it rotates.
Yet.
In fact right now it looks like the storm is going into the Cameron/Lake Charles area At least that’s where all the weather guys seem to be standing out in the storm while they tell all of us to stay inside.
They have one female reporter out in the storm who needs to be tied down or something. She has literally been blown out of the camera frame several times.
It does look like the winds are not as bad as had been forecast, seeming staying in the low 100’s, rather than the 140-150 mph that they were touting.
Small favors, and all that.
Going into work this morning about 10am, I did see a number of houses with plywood on the windows and others that had their storm shutters closed,. Plus the traffic was much, much lighter on the roads.
Just in case, I did go out about 9 this evening to let in the window awnings and stow away the DirecTV satellite dome and table. It can’t hurt.
But as of right now, for us at least, it’s so far, so good.
August 26, 2013
We’re Still Gateworthy . . .
After being told we probably wouldn’t be sent out until tomorrow, the call came about 3:15 to head ‘em up and move ‘em out today. And at about 3:45, we did.
We were sent to what I call the 2nd gate. Right off US-281A and only about 6 miles from the GGS Whitsett office.
And as it turns out, the previous gate guards that work for another company did not know they were being replaced until this afternoon.
We were able to park on the other side from where these guards are parked. This puts our windshield pointing east rather than west into the afternoon sun. It will really help with keeping things cool.
This was what we refer to as a ‘Hot Gate’. We hit the ground working, Jan logging vehicles in and out while I was getting the rig parked and everything set up. We had the usual great support from the Gate Guard Services guys, who had our power, water, and sewer trailers all set up and ready to go.
About 5:30 I drove back over to the Interstate and got us BBQ sandwiches for supper at Choke Canyon BBQ. Turned out to be pretty good.
I went in after supper and tried to sleep for a while before my 11p – 7a shift started but didn’t have much luck with that. But I bet I’ll sleep good next time.
More from the Whitsett Gate tomorrow.
August 26, 2015
It Ain’t Pretty . . .
But it works.
Today was our first full day on this gate and it’s turning out to be a really nice one. We had a whole 38 trucks come through during the 24 hours, making for easy shifts for both of us.
Unlike a lot of gate guarding couples, Jan and I split up our shifts, rather than working two 12 hour shifts. Jan works from 7am to 1pm, I work 1pm to 6pm, then Jan works 6pm to 11pm. And I finish up the time by working 11pm to 7am,
When Jan comes on at 7am, she brings out breakfast, usually a breakfast sandwich or English muffin, and we eat together before I go in to sleep. Then I bring out coffee around 11:30am to have together. Around 1:30 or so, Jan hands me out a snack for lunch, normally bread and cheese, or maybe fruit.
Then when she comes out at 6pm to relieve me, she brings out supper and we eat together before I go in to sleep. Last night it was our leftovers from Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro last Saturday night, and it was Nachos tonight. But always something simple and easy.
As you can see from this schedule, I sleep about 4 hours, twice a day, which works fine for me. But your mileage may differ. I have no problem doing this for the entire time we gate guard. We know many couples that do the 12 and 12 thing, but this works great for us.
Last night I finished putting up the canopy frame and tied the tarp down on top. Blog readers who were with us last year might remember when a downburst during a thunderstorm shredded the fabric top of our 13’ x 13’ Coleman canopy. So for the rest of our time I put a tarp over the frame.
One problem with using the regular canopy top is that there is no way to quickly remove it in case high winds are on the way. But with the tarp I can easy pull it off after releasing the tie-downs. Much better than buy a new $80 canopy top from Coleman a couple of times a year.
Of course, it ain’t pretty, but it gets the job down.
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Thought for the Day:
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
August 26, 2016
Almost, But Not Quite . . .
We kind of started logging this evening since it looked like they were going to start drilling.
But they’re still having problems, as least partially because this is a brand spanking new rig. As one guy said, parts of it still had the bubble wrap on it. But then tonight a CANRIG guy said, maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday. So I guess we’ll see.
We’re pretty much all set up with the canopy, chairs, table, clock all in place. And I’ll gradually get the electrical stuff, i.e. chargers, lights, etc., in position and working.
We did have something unexpected happen today, though.
We got fed.
A young lady came through the gate and asked if we like BBQ, When we said YES!, she said she was catering today and would save a couple of plates for us.
Really good BBQ. Don’t know who she was with, or if this will be a regular occurrence, but it was nice. And Banana Pudding for dessert.
Jamie’s coming back by Monday or Tuesday to bring us more water. We only had about 350 gallons to start with, rather the 500 gallons the tank holds.
Don’t know where he’s getting his water now, but it’s really soft. I know in some cases he buys if from city water works or the fire department.
He’s also bringing me a hardhat so that I’ll have one to wear when I go on the pad. It’s a requirement here, even for civilians.
That’s about it for today, with not much noteworthy happening.
Hopefully more tomorrow.
Thought for the Day:
“When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.”
August 26, 2017
Post Harvey . . .
Maybe.
For Jan and I Harvey was kind of a bust, at least as far as hurricanes go.
But unfortunately that wasn’t the case for 100,000’s of Texas residents down in the Corpus Christi/Rockport area, with widespread destruction over the entire area.
According to Facebook, this is the remains of the Pioneer RV Park in Port Aransas. I’ve heard various stories as to why so many rigs were there, from that many of them were left there permanently and the owners couldn’t get back in time to get them out, to they couldn’t leave because of the gas shortages. Like most thing, it’s probably a little of both.
Our prayers go out to everyone.
Just to be safe I went out and let in our awnings about 1am before I went to bed, figuring it would get really windy overnight as the storm bands passed over. But we had next to no wind whatsoever and never lost power.
Although we had some rain during the night, none of it was very heavy. In fact several times in the past we’ve had much heavier wind and rain here just from normal thunderstorms. And when we used to winter over at the Galveston Bay RV Park down in Dickinson, we regularly had squalls coming in off Galveston Bay with 50-60mph wind gusts and really heavy downpours.
Jan and I were both up about 8am, about 3 hours early for me, and a little late for her, but we wanted to check in with our kids, Chris down in the Clear Lake area, and Brandi over in Katy.
Turned out that although they both seemed to have more rain and wind than we did, they didn’t really have any problems from the storm.
Of course, depending on who’s hurricane track you want to believe, the Houston area might be in for more bad weather if the now-tropical depression Harvey turns north east and heads back this way.
But based on this plot of possible Harvey tracks, it could go in pretty much any direction, so I guess we’ll see.
But whatever happens we probably won’t leave the rig tomorrow just like we didn’t leave today. Especially since the Weather Channel says that we’re in for High Winds/Heavy Rain here in the Conroe area tomorrow.
Thought for the Day:
