Thank You for Your Prayers
- Community
- Current Aramco Employees
Author: Dianne Dickinson
Released 11 September 2005
Grant Dickinson
Photograph by Dianne Dickinson
Thank you all so much for your offers of assistance and your prayers.
My family and I are all alive and reasonably well. We all stayed in Gulfport for Katrina because we had made it through so many others and wanted to be there to start rebuilding as soon as possible. We never dreamed the tidal surge would be so massive. Never.
We had planned to stay at Grant's house all together and at the very last minute Granny, Julie and I went to the apartment that we had rented for our house renovation and Grant and Melissa moved to her boss's house in Long Beach.
Had we stayed at either my or Grant's house that night...we'd all be dead today. God was truly with us.
As most of you know, Greg and I were just about complete with a total renovation to our lovely beach retirement home. In fact, Julie and I had only been in the house for two days. I cooked one meal on my stove which was the emergency meat supply for the storm. My gorgeous dream house was totally destroyed. The entire house was moved off the foundation and the second floor eventually collapsed into the first. Our furniture is no where to be found. Julie's car was in the garage which fell on top of it.
My business was washed out to sea. There's nothing there but a roof and some wires hanging down.
Hurricane Katrina
Photograph by Dianne Dickinson
Grant's house is a total loss as several trees fell into it and it flooded by some six feet of water. His washer and dryer was in his back yard.
We've lost all of our material possessions, our clothes, our cars, our kitchens, our houses, our furniture, our business. But we're alive.
The devastation is far beyond anything on television.
The looting is horrible. The drinking water is contaminated, the mosquitoes are breeding rapidly in the stagnant sea water, the hospitals are without power and sending patients to other states.
Schools probably won't be operational until MAYBE December 1. Power is at least a month away in the easiest to access areas and phones could be months away. Gas is out.
The wreckage is everywhere, on every street, in every town.
Julie, Granny and I are in Montgomery with friends and starting to make our insurance calls and line up the adjusters. Grant and Melissa went to Arkansas to stay with friends and gather generators, water and gas.
I don't know what we'll do from here, we're just taking a day at a time and trying to get over the shock and loss.
We appreciate our friends and are so grateful for your concern,
Dianne, Julie, Granny, Grant and Melissa
P.S. We're in Houston now and all together as a family. We're doing ok and trying to plan what to do next. I think we're going to go to Mobile, Alabama and rent for a while, at least until we get through all the insurance paperwork.