Damage to trees and fences in the area much more extensive than in our neighborhood. Still no major structural damage seen except from downed trees. Power is still out but generator still running well. Power flickered on around 5pm so maybe we’ll get lucky.
Lori is mad the storm didn’t kill off all the mosquitoes.
It is around 9:30am and we are still experiencing storm conditions here. We have occasional tropical storm strength gusts and some light rain. The bulk of the storm is north of us now so conditions should continue to improve from here on out.
The power is still out so we got the generator out and running to keep the freezer cold. There is no indication of how long the power will be out.
As far as damage, there is little to report. There appears to be no structual damage to any of the homes in the neighborhood. A few small trees are down and there are branches everywhere. Our neighbor’s fence has some damage from a small tree that fell on it, but that is all so far.
Once the storm subsides soon I will venture out on the bike to get more details. The city’s curfew ended a few minutes ago but they still want people off the roads.
It is just about 3am and we are seeing hurricane force conditions here in Sugar Land. The sustained winds are strong enough that the whole house is groaning and any tiny gap in weatherstripping is acting like a flute. We’ve had at least tropical storm force conditions for the past 6 hours. Rain really did not arrive until 3 hours ago.
We’ve been without power for 3 hours now, but luckily the cellular data network is still alive.
The news reports that landfall for the center of the storm was just before 3. We’ve got another 8 hours or so of bad weather to sit out.
Today Dell contacted me four times – twice by e-mail and twice by phone – to inform me that a credit has been issued by them for the laptop that was stolen in transit. It took 8 business days after they said they would issue a credit and 13 business days after the laptop was originally estimated to be delivered.
The saga isn’t over until the credit actually hits my credit card account, but in all likelihood that will be tomorrow morning.
A friend came across this blog entry on the Consumerist that details another saga of pain and suffering caused by the wonderful ability to Dell customer service to screw up. Given it’s another issue with the interaction between Dell and DHL it really makes you go “hmmm…”
It really sounds like someone high up in Dell needs to get out the clue bat and work on their customer service team and how they deal with DHL. I personally find DHL to be the worst of the big courier services to begin with, but Dell is the one causing most of the grief here.
