Beryl Log (recut)
An account of events, updated
The following is a recut of an original post from roughly a year ago. At the time it was published, I wasn’t happy with it, and removed it from the posts. The content has been expanded and cleaned up as well, and a post at the end will be some extra thoughts. Also, grammar will be edited as needed for the post. So enjoy the Beryl Saga, just slightly tuned up. Most of the post was a record/account of events in real time, day by day. So if it’s a little disjointed, it is because they were notes to be expanded upon later, but I wanted to get initial thoughts and feelings down before I forgot.
Prelude: Psycho Prepper, Qu'est-ce que c'est
When it comes to a hurricane, one thing I learned is that you need to be ready for it. One thing I am known for is prepping for even the smallest thing. Like if we’re going to the gas station for ice, I am required to plan a way inside the building, going out, and about twelve contingencies just in case they don’t have ice. In other words, prepping is my thing. This is, however, the one time I was under-prepared. The hurricane was reported to miss us and only graze the area slightly. Still, I did a few smart things:
Filled the car up
Bought a case of water (for two people, a pack does us)
Got some cash out in case the machines were down
bought a pizza for dinner, which usually means leftovers for the next day.
Pets had food, and also cleaned out the cat litter.
Laundry was done, and well, everything was charged.
So the psycho planner worked once more, and we were as ready as two people could be. It was not perfect, but for what was forecasted, I was confident we were going to weather the storm. As the storm approached, the plan was changing, and I am convinced now, looking back, even till the last second, they had no idea what the hell was happening. That is weather, folks, it is not a perfect science, and they even admit as much. Still, when the hurricane hit I was surprised how hard it seemed to hit us, naivety will later show where we got very freaking lucky.
Day one: Welp, that happened
Part One: Riders of the Storm
When we woke up on the day Beryl…barreled in (sorry, can’t resist good puns), it was very windy, but much to my surprise, we still had power. The night before, I told Ili to keep the AC at 70 and not let it drop lower; a cooler house will vent out slowly, so it will be more comfy. As the storm was raging, we had the news on. While we had power surges, we never truly lost power for a bit. I got a cup of coffee and was just watching this unfold, while we had heavy wind and surprisingly light rain. We were chilling and just riding it out. It was at about 9:30 am that I thought to myself, as I looked outside and it seemed to be calming down, “Wow, we might get out of this with our power intact.”
At that point, the wind suddenly picked up, and we suddenly heard a loud crash outside, and the power flicked and did what I call the “last gasp”, lots of trying to come on and flickering intensely, slowly fading into death. It was at that point that we knew it was gonna be a day. The next few hours were us just watching the storm and being impressed by the winds. We also realized soon that we did not have much when it comes to cell phone signals. Resigned to the fact that we were out of contact, we shut off our phones and turned them on at times to just see if it improved. For the record, it did not till maybe nine at night.
The next thing was, as we were watching the winds, I noticed a tree by us was looking different, now I, being a person not well versed in nature, looked down at the roots and thought it odd. To me, the tree looked like it was “breathing.”
“Hey, Ili…I think the tree is breathing?” I said to her as I was watching this go on, she was confused, and came up and looked. My wife, who seemed surprisingly more knowledgeable than I knew about trees, quickly explained to me what was happening.
“Brandon, that isn't breathing, the roots are moving!”
So, last summer was hot, like insanely hot, and a lot of trees did not see rain for almost three months. The trees did not get the usual dosage of rain they need to, you know, live. We saw this happen here during a straight-line wind that happened back in early June and nearly destroyed a section of Houston. So we have been aware of it, and from there now, Ili and I are focused on this tree like it’s our television. We saw it moving, now I was worried it was gonna hit our building. At this moment, watching the tree sway, Ili had a rather smart idea:
“You know, we should move the movies away from the window.”
“What about the pets? Shouldn’t we get them someplace safe?”
“Oh yeah, that too…”
We did the pets first, which was fun getting Naomi into a cage as she slipped out like some feline form of the T-1000. At one point, Ili got close to our window after we had moved everything. This was, of course, the one moment where the tree looked like it might do what I feared and hit us. As she stood there, my instinct kicked in:
”ILI, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!”
She looked at me and realized what was happening, and did so; thankfully, it did not hit the building, but it still scared the hell out of me. It was also at this point that I got very scared and ran down to my garage and opened it up just to move the car out of harm’s way. That 20 feet was never covered so fast in a Prius.
Part Two: Nothing but flowers
The storm soon subsided, and I went out and looked around our complex. It looked like we had Poison Ivy from Batman take the place of her lair. Lots of green leaves from the trees down, and a lot A LOT of trees ripped from the roots. One even blocked the path near a parkway to get around, uprooted the cement beside it, the guy whose unit was next to it saw it, and more or less shrugged as the damage was surveyed. The life of a tenant, you don’t have control of it, you just have to wait for the owners to come to clean it up, and see if there is anything you can do.
So the phrase of the week that has been uttered since then was coined “That’s Wild…”
Below are some pictures of the apartment complex I am in and the aftermath of everything…
We realized it was safe to get out and opted to do so. We decided to begin going to my job as it was the closest thing, and also didn’t know if we’d see anyone. As we drove, it looked like we had just come out of a war or something. Buildings are messed up, damage is done all over the place, and everyone looks like they just saw god and lost a game of poker to him. When we got there, to an empty parking lot, I called one of my co-workers, naturally, the job was closed. But we confirmed everyone was okay, and we also had some signal.
We then called our respective families in other places, letting them know we survived but would be cut off for a while. We also found out that a store was actually open and had power. So we went in along with others to cool off and kind of be among people. It was odd being with people after something like this, it felt like we had a collective ass kicking and did not know what to do with ourselves after the beating. Realizing we had nothing and not wanting to burn more gas, and wanted to check on the pets. We decided to return home.
That night was not pleasant. We felt we needed showers, and were lucky we got lukewarm showers at that. We had our dinner of cold pizza that night, but we still felt lucky to be alive and having food. We retired early that night, simply because we had nothing else to do. As you can imagine, the heat caught up, and the night was miserable for sleeping in general, and wondering when we were gonna get our power back.
Day two: Survivors under the sky
Who knew work could be a save point?
As the first full day (as of now) without power began, my phone erupted with its usual ring tone of my co-worker asking if we were open as she was opening the store. I think I was both taken back we had power at the shitty little store on the corner, and also that she called me. I explained the boss was going to be arriving and we all were to show up at 8. Since she was there, I proceeded for the next 20 minutes to get text messages. Eventually forced to be awake with all the sounds, I just got up and got ready for work. I took my phone and fast charger, thinking that if nothing else, I’d be able to get those taken care of. From there, it was pretty slow.
Some people I work with went exploring as I held the store, watching the gas station across the way line up with people in insane lines for gas. I stood there watching people line up, and also had that one customer that in the middle of a fucking hurricane decided its more important to go paint someone’s house instead of wait for a day.
As the day was going nowhere, we were allowed to bring people over to cool down and do other things. So I went and got Ili, so she could charge her stuff. She desperately needed coffee, and well, we had no cups. My boss suggested cutting a bottle to make room for the Keurig. Thus, we have MacGyver coffee. Some others brought other people with them, and work sort of became a hub for all of us to acquire power and rest, like a Soulsborne waypoint.
Part Two: Power Restored
When I went to take Ili home, we got a surprise as we rolled up, we noticed traffic lights and other things were back online. To find the power had been restored, still nervous, we rolled to our apartment and did the final check: Turning on the garage door, when it opened, I think we never felt so happy. At least until we finally left the state later that year. We planned to be out of power till the end of the week, so day two and having power was a great coup. Now we still did not have WIFI, but hey, I’ll take a cool home and lack of internet, it’s a fair trade.
Another thing that happened, not to my surprise, was the clearing of damaged stuff, that tree I mentioned earlier. When taking the pug out for a walk, it was already cut down and sorted, a rather surprising feat given the time and day, along with the heat. Ili mentioned that the landlord even came to every unit and checked on the buildings and people. When Ili brought up our tree that swerves when it drives, the landlord saw it and pretty much agreed it’s gonna be a problem. However, there were other things to attend to, like the entryway and a lot of other actual, down trees, but it was going to be addressed as soon as it could.
Here are some pics from 2 days after Beryl made its way through and the clean up, this was pretty much 24 hours later…
We were kind of relieved and surprised at the landlord coming; our last owners more or less liked to stay in the office, and rather than do things, gave out goodies. I wonder what they’d of done to appease a lot of pissed-off hot people who wanted results after something like this. Maybe they’d of done Child Labor Day? However. The fact that in less than eight hours we had a cleared entrance, a major obstruction down, and, surprisingly clean area to walk in despite the fact that some trees were still down. You have to give credit where credit is due.
Part Three: Get by with a little help from your friends
From there, we also found another boon for others: GAS! Something people needed to power cars and generators. I told my boss about it as I went to pick up some items we had in storage in the fridge till we got power back. She ran off, and I saw her at the station and felt assured. Going back to my job, she found out it was cash only, so back I went to get her some spare cash I had on hand. So, for day two, it’s already looked better than Monday started. I spent the night taking in a movie, look I feel like a lord among lords with the fact I have power so I took in a movie I haven’t seen in a bit “Ford V Ferrari” If you like car movies this is a good one, also great scenes and man, you forget how versatile an actor Christian Bale is.
I also offered our house to friends as needed. I did not have much to offer other than A/C, a washer and dryer, and Tekken. But I said if someone needed a place to cool they are welcome. We also got told that we were pretty much off for the next few days as the city sorted itself out. Earlier, before I went home, I did a sweep of the area to update others on what was open and what was safe. All that said, we were up and operational and grateful we were so lucky, and ready to pay it forward to others if they took it.
Day Three: The light dystopia
A return to normality, kind of
Since we’ve regained power, I won’t lie, a lot of pressure and stress is off us, I went last night and got an antenna so we could at least get some local news info (something you kind of need after a thing like this happens) as we still do not have any internet. I took Ili to work for the first time this morning, and we noticed outside of the highway we live on was powered, while the one going south towards town is still dead with some signs of life. Arriving at her work, we saw portable lights running in the parking lot, and the store was “open,” and by “open,” I mean more or less hot boxes with expired foods and other things due to a lack of power.
The biggest thing I’ve seen, and it makes the most sense, is the gas lines, as power comes back on for businesses and everyone is more or less still without power. People are lining up to try and get gas to survive, and we are currently in a drive-out-only situation. So basically work and maybe at the end of the week food, but I am not sure about that just yet.
When you see things now, it went from an odd dystopia to a dystopia-light kind of vibe, yeah, we have power, but there are a lot of people who did not, we were in the elite. Between the lines outside gas stations and downed trees. I became very adept at dodging and weaving in lanes. We learned our area has two power companies, more or less. If you are in the county of Houston, one company takes care of you, the other is the one we have, and they were forecasting some people in our area not getting power till the end of the weekend, at the earliest.
So the rest of this day was spent chilling and trying to do right, I took some time and cleaned up some debris near our apartment, not because the owners were not doing anything, quite the opposite, I felt it was the least I could do to be helpful.
Day Four: The net returns and Stability seem to be setting in…
This morning I woke up to find out the internet was restored, while Ili gave me shit about me calling them yesterday, in the back of my mind do wonder if maybe I was that one call that pushed them over the edge. I was also told yesterday that I had two options for work: Go to another store or take PTO, since I had a floater day and only would burn one PTO day I said screw it and took the rest of the week off. If gas were not a precious resource and the roads were not at times a Mario Kart course (well, obstacle-wise anyway), I did not feel it prudent to even bother going to work, why would you wanna work for two days, especially if you have power?
Also, it feels like the first time we’ve been able to just do our thing since this started, I feel like we’d of killed one another if we had a week of no power plus the heat draining you.
Day five: The lord giveth and taketh away…
By Friday morning, we were pretty much back to standard operating, Ili went to work, and I was on vacation, so my morning was going to be pretty mellow. As boredom for me set in, I got a text from work saying it was optional to come in. Given that I’d lose money, I would go back to the deep cleaning project my boredom had led me to.
After picking Ili up and heading home, Ili saw something coming. She saw lights flickering and instantly began to panic. I assured her that it was probably just the lights in the bathroom going off and nothing to worry about. After twenty minutes and we lost power I was also eating my foot…still tastes bad..
Regarding the fact that we had no power, I just made peace with the situation. I mean, we got our power back the first day after the storm left, and there were people now nearing five days with no power. Did it suck? Hell yes, it did, but it’s a bit disingenuous to complain about losing power when you’ve had it pretty much after the storm left. As we sat in the house, my attention turned to other matters. Food, Ili needed to get to bed early, and we had already ordered food. I was annoyed, but thought, well, I won’t be getting that order done today as the restaurant already lost power, also.
We once more went south, as I knew there was power there and also food. We also had another thing to consider: time of day, people are going to be getting hungry. If you want to eat, you need to be ahead, so I set my focus on a nearby Burger King I knew would be open. As we drove, we got a call from the restaurant, and they explained what happened. Figuring we would not get power in time, I just said to refund the charge, which the person did not argue with. I was surprised they called and will for sure be going back to give them the money another day. They earned it with that call.
We sat at the restaurant and ate and talked about events that were going on in life. More time spent there would be less time sitting in a dark, hot box. After using the bathroom and heading to the car, I got a text from the power company. The power was back on, and relieved, we rushed home to confirm and resume life once more.
Let this be a lesson, just cause you got lucky doesn’t mean your luck sticks. We learned the power was out cause of the storm rolling through the area and worker safety. But still, everyone complained, and well, we got lucky once again. Be grateful for what you have and use it as needed, it may not always be there, and if there is one lesson I am taking from this whole adventure. It will be that one, it has been a very sobering experience, to say the least…
Final Thoughts:
So now it is Saturday, we’re back to a normal sense of things, people are in stores buying things, and life is slowly going back to normal for most of us. However, some are still without power nearly a week after the storm. Our power provider is sending out updates once or twice a day explaining what has been going on. I have been checking them, even if I don’t need to worry about it, I am curious how they are progressing; they, as of this morning, have completed 80% of the repairs needed. The company that powers the county south of us that also houses Houston, well, they are…somehow making things worse?
It’s been documented by news stations and others just how F’d the city and county have been. Where my wife works, they still do not have power, and the lights nearby for traffic remain off as well. It’s been fun watching people relearn how a four-way stop is supposed to work. But going back to the power situation, it amazed me and even at the time gave me confidence that we were gonna bounce back fast from the storm. I even commented to my co-worker that morning how our little area having power was a good sign. The rest of the suburbs my co-workers live in seem to of not been nearly as lucky as we were. Looking at the Ring camera network, many people are still asking about the status of power, and nothing is being turned on.
Businesses are restarting, though some still run on generators work I feel we are back and ready to roll on Monday, but nothing is guaranteed at this point. It feels like a lot of people who don’t have power are tired, frustrated, and rightly angry. If you have been without power for almost a week, I would not blame you for being angry. I’ve been thinking a lot about where I used to live and when we’d lose power how it would suck and we’d complain about it being off for…three hours, the longest I think we went without power in my youth was during a strong cold snap and going down to the fireplace to throw logs on during the night as everyone slept.
I can’t even begin to fathom how I, or my family, would have endured a week of no power, and on top of that, being in the cold. Granted, it sucks here now but even when the power was out you could go out at the risk of depleting gas. If I did that back where I lived, we also had to contend with ice on the road, breezes that could move your car aside and throw you into a ditch if you were not careful, and, well, snow on the ground. I was surprised how quickly the world seemed to pick up, and seeing semis with loads moving on the highway was a sign that things were not completely stopped.
What is sticking with me is that this was just a category one on a scale of five, I don't know how bad things would be if we had to deal with a level 2, or god forbid, a 5. With the weather changing due to climate and other factors, such as seeming indifference or low priority, some companies are taking with things. I don’t wanna even know, my wife and I moved down here for many reasons, one of them was to grow and see how we would adapt here. What my time here as a whole has taught me is that the infrastructure of the utilities of Texas is just so woefully under-prepared for something that many people were looking at as minor. Even the news stations I watched were commenting on how Ike was worse as a storm, but not nearly as devastating as this event has been.
Epilogue: Post-Mortem and looking back
I’m writing this part in the year 2025, it’s almost been a year since the events of the post, we are obviously in another state now. But, it’s kind of been interesting from a weather nerd perspective seeing what has come out.
A website I checked often, and through the events in Houston, Space City Weather in January, shared a report done by the National Hurricane Center. A lot of it is common sense, but still, if you’re curious about how it is viewed from the weather standpoint. You can find it here.
What I can recall from living then, I remember a lot of worry about the grid and support. It felt as if you so much as turned your head wrong. The power died, and I even filed a complaint with ERCOT after another sudden outage. Having to drive down to a store to get internet to do it. It was not just us, and I remember at one point I’d be at work and a co-worker asked if I could check the Ring network to see if her apartment was down. Is it an upgrade from checking if an area has power by active Whataburger restaurants? Yeah, but still…
We also noticed our internet just went to crap, trying to do podcasts to just general streaming was proving to be a pain. The Internet was also down frequently, and it felt like they were trying to repair it without saying it was because of the hurricane.
I remember looking at what was happening in real time and being both in awe and terrified of the weather. I’ve always had an interest in weather, and Ili jokes with me one time, catching me with popcorn watching a YouTube stream of a snowstorm and being totally into it like someone watching sports or a movie. At first, it was cool, but as the mounting danger piled up, I was ready for it to be over. I will also say that venturing outside after the storm was such a surreal moment for me. Twenty-four hours before, I was walking my dog, and the next I was walking around, and everyone around me was lost in a fog. Our communal instincts to check on one another kicked in, and no one was thankfully hurt. Material things could be replaced, but people were alive, so for all of us, it was a win simply from that.
Mother Nature is very powerful, and living through snowstorms, heavy storms, and now a hurricane. It does make me look up in the skies now with more respect, it also shows just how stupid things and dumb luck can turn a terrible situation into an almost manageable one. Make no mistake: we got very lucky and are aware of it, and grateful that we did get that.
I now watch these things from miles away, and not having to worry unless they move up here and pound us with rain. This will not be the last hurricane, and what we’re seeing will probably be more intense, and with NOAA in shambles, less accurate information will lead to more destruction. It’s understandable why many are leaving, though with no signs of trying to fix it, can you blame people?
So as I sit back arm chair quarterbacking weather and watching stuff, I have a bit more of an understanding of how things can go from okay to holy shit. We were lucky in that we could get away where many cannot. If a storm comes and you’re in a position to do so, donate to charities and other groups that help rebuild. After this, even a strong cat one is something to be feared. At least from my experience.
That’s gonna wrap up this post, it was a little different, but I thought it was a good way to show real-time how things can go down like a reporter embedded.
-The Chaos director