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:
