40 Saber Tails Fall 2017
Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America
hurricane harvey
When a plan doesn’t go according to plan
By Tiffany Cannon
H
urricanes usually form off the coast of Africa and make a slow and plodding course across the Atlantic. As they near
the juncture between North and South America, weather patterns help determine which way they will turn. Steer-
ing currents are known in advance and weathermen usually have a fairly decent idea of which way the storm will turn at
least a couple of days before it arrives. Hurricanes are one of the few natural disasters for which there is time to plan and
prepare. Except...when there isn’t. This certainly doesn’t minimize their impact, just allows
people at least a little time to try to get out of the way when possible.
H
arvey entered the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical depression after crossing the Yucatan
Peninsula. It had spent a week dousing Mexico and a handful of Caribbean Islands with
rain, but no real damage. Unlike almost every other hurricane, it appeared to have fizzled
out when it suddenly reorganized in a mere 56 hours from a depression into a Category 4
hurricane aimed directly at the Texas coast. Landfall was just north of Corpus Christi put-
ting Houston on the ‘dirty’ side where the rain and wind are the most severe.
W
e live about 50 miles inland and about 160 miles from
Victoria where the center of the storm passed Friday
night. We had prepared by buying water, gas for the genera-
tor, food, extra dog food, etc. We have been through hurri-
canes before and were prepared to live for a week or more,
if we needed to, without power. What we hadn’t anticipated
was the inevitable tornado activity that frequently accompa-
nies the stronger feeder bands on a hurricane’s dirty side. A
small tornado skipped through our neighborhood...missing
all houses, but taking out trees across several properties in-
cluding ours. We were awakened at 1:34 in the morning to a
violent jolt that reverberated through the walls along with a very loud rumbling sound and
crash.
B
eginning about 7 pm our phones had started sounding off with Emergency Alerts every
15 minutes. Tornado Watch – Tornado Warning – Flood Warning – High Wind Advisory,
etc., etc., etc. At 7 pm, every warning brought me to a window to double check the sky,
make sure there was no evidence of clouds moving in different directions above us and that the color was still ‘sky-
colored’ and not greenish-gray. All seemed normal – windy, rainy and
blustery. Everything was as expected in the preamble to a Category 4
hurricane. By midnight, Bill and I had both reached for the volume but-
tons on our phones to silence the loud and relentless warnings. They
were literally coming every few minutes. Honestly, there was nothing
different we could have done even with the warnings.
B
efore bed, we had put Aslak, Apple, Monroe and Jezebel in crates
covered with blankets. They tend to panic a bit with a really big
thunder storm. My biggest concern was that a tree would fall knocking
a fence down and the dogs would escape in the morning. Our two old
ladies were in bed with us along with our Spanish Water Dog. Unlike
We live just to the South West of the
blue dot (Houston)
This tree was twisted off about 20 feet
up. Evidence that this damage was
caused by a tornado and not hurri-
cane winds
Massive pecan tree that fell onto the roof, attic & garage