We’re back in the Bay Area after our adventure to Houston, where our vacation just happened to coincide with Hurricane Beryl’s landfall. What luck!

It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but on Sunday, the day before landfall, we still had our family gathering. It was good to see everybody in person, even if it was for only a couple of hours. On Monday, our hotel lost power from 6:30 AM until 10:30 PM (16 hours). My parents house didn’t have power for over two days, and my sister lucked out and didn’t lose power at her place at all.

By Monday afternoon, the rain stopped and we were able to restock at a nearby HEB (PB&J for dinner!); even after being away for so long, HEB is still the GOAT. There’s plenty of news and social media coverage about the aftermath if you care to look, but I couldn’t help but draw parallels on the complaints about CenterPoint with our very own PG&E. I’ll wait a bit for the after action reports.

For Tuesday, most intersections and places around our area were still out of power, and everywhere we drove had fallen branches, toppled trees, and all sorts of road debris. We flew out Wednesday morning. There’s a lot to unpack from this trip, both figuratively and literally, so it’ll take some time to collect my thoughts. Who knows, maybe I’ll write a bit more about it.

---