row, row, row yer boat. . . .

Back for a short. Happy 4th. I finally got a day off. My a%# is dragging. I personally handed out 60 cases of bottled water to disaster workers, by myself, yesterday. What a freakin' mess! The latest estimate is $137 million to recover from this. The most amazing thing of all: no casualties. A ton of homes and vehicles trashed. It washed rail cars off tracks, and MOVED railroad tracks 20-30 feet. What's mind boggling is that not only that amount of rain, but the short time it fell in. The brunt of it was from 1AM-4AM, while people were sleeping. We made The Weather Channel and other national news. After the city water finally was repaired (1 week), there was a multitude of bottled water left over from the H.E.B. donations. They didn't want it back, because they had already written it off. They said, "Come and get it!" We now have a veritible well of bottled (Desani) water in the barn. Should last Deb a year. What blows my mind is with half the streets ion town washed out, and the Aqua Boom in Kingsland cancelled, the illustrious city manager announced that the city will put on a fireworks display tonight at the park. Oh, by the way, this lake front park has been flooded and the lake is closed. Now, all the riff-raff from Buchanan, Kingsland, Granite Shoals, and Burnet will be in Marble Falls tonight. Can you imagine the traffic?!!!!!!!! I figure he must have family in for the holiday and wants to put on a show for them. To hell with the consequences. Oh well. Back to the 12-hr shifts tomorrow. Meanwhile, the CID cases keep piling up. Boy howdy!!!!!!! More as it comes in, Rick.