Disaster Relief

Travis and David picked up Ariel and Robert from the airport yesterday with no problems. I'm happy to have a piece of my family back together. It's nice to have a little normalcy, despite the chaos. I sat with Ariel last night at the computer and signed her up for FEMA assistance. They announced that anyone who lives on Galveston Island should apply immediately, even if they haven't seen the damage to their home because virtually every residence on the island has been damaged. We also signed her up on the Red Cross Safe and Well list, as I did earlier in the day. I know that all our family knows we are well, but it feels better to get it registered. Today we plan to get her and Travis signed up for Disaster Unemployment Assistance with the Texas Workforce Commission.

David and Stephanie have been super gracious for keeping all of us and our pets at their home. I am so thankful to have friends like this. Ariel and Robert are sleeping on a mattress in Wednesday's room, so they have their own space. I think it was weird for them to see some of the photos and videos of Galveston. We saw a shrimp boat up in the parking lot for the restaurants that Ariel and Robert used to work at. It was leaning against the pay booth where we used to drop of our stamped tickets.

I think we are going to head over to a larger town today to buy some groceries and find a Best Buy. I'm hoping they will be able to take care of our broken laptop before we head back to our house. No word from Cowboy Willy yet that our power has been restored.

Here is just a portion of our current zoo (not pictured: two chihuahua mixes and three cats)...

*Please note that I included links to all these disaster related websites for those of you who will need them. Although I have a feeling that the people who need it the most don't have Internet access at the moment.