Boy it has been a long week and it is only Monday!
Hurricane Update - 2 - the aftermath...
It seems like the hurricane hit a week ago rather than just two days ago. Ann and I weathered the storm just fine and our house does not appear to have suffered any major damage. In talking with the rest of the staff, everyone is fine and no-one had any major damage so far (Barney and Barbara have not been able to get to their new house on Tiki Island). Until today, we had no power and Pat and Teresa Croll generously let us stay in their house, set-up a bank of computers and move in. Yes, they had power and Internet service so Oceanic Ventures World-Wide Headquarters and Ann's command central temporarily relocated to Katy, Texas.
The store did not fare so well. The roof lifted on our building and was destroyed allowing water the enter the store soaking the ceiling, rug and counters. Of course the items stored in these area also got wet. However while we did lose a lot of stored paper, much of the inventory was spared as were most of the computer systems. We spent today removing wet paper and cardboard from the store, drying out wet items, drying, sorting and storing repair parts and sweating. Yes, that's right the store has no power like 1.9 million other customers.
This evening, the water is being extracted from the carpets and a de-humidifier is supposed to be installed to help remove the moisture in the office. The specialists tell me that it will take two to three days to entirely dry the suite. By then we hope to have power re-established.
To help get things going, we will be relocating the computer systems to our house (we got power back today!) as well as rerouting the phones so you can once again hear Ann's smiling voice.
Since Houston is currently under a curfew and our staff are trying to get their lives back in order, we plan to restart classes next week.
Please be patient with us during this time, we may not be as responsive as we want to be because of having our operation spread out all over Houston but we will try and get back to you as soon as we can.
If you need anything, please call us. If we cannot find it right away, we'll dig through the boxes and meet you somewhere to deliver it (or you can stop by when power is restored -- I can't take too much heat although I did enjoy the cold beer across the street at the Fedora Lounge). We hope to have the store back in operation in a week. There may be some movements during the repair phase but we will keep you posted as to our where abouts in the area (don't worry, we are not moving).
We are all thankful that we were lucky and none of our staff was injured. There are a lot of people in the Houston Area who were not so lucky and we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers.
We hope that those of you in the area came through the storm with few problems. We really feel lucky and look forward to getting back to diving in the beautiful places around the world (like the Beautiful Blue Lagoon shown in the photo above).
If you have a moment, please let us know how you are doing, we would like to know how our extended family is doing and how your fared.
Please remember, when things look too tough to handle, remember your last dive and how peaceful and beautiful things were.
Sincerely,
Eric Keibler
Oceanic Ventures
