A Good Day

It was a good day for inspections today. It started out with tornado warnings in the area I was heading for so I waited a bit. No problems on the drive over but as soon as it got to the house it started to dump rain. I called the applicant and just waived at her through the window and said I would be in when it let up. It did in a few minutes.
One of the problems we have is making contact with the applicants since many have been forced to move out or don't have phone service. The drill is to call them a few times, leave messages and then go by the site and "post" it with a sign that tells them to contact us ASAP to move forward on THEIR request for assistance. I also tell them that I will be moving on very soon and they might not see me again for a few weeks. This usually gets some action. It's a game called "take it away" that I play to get them to actually commit to an appointment time. If I let them run the schedule, I would be running back and forth all over the area and driving a lot more than is needed. It's been a pretty successful action so far. Some have just flat moved out of the area and are not coming back any time soon. These we can return to FEMA as "no contacts - returns" after 7 days.

I'm almost done with the Harvey area. I got three new ones there tonight in my download but managed to get them all scheduled for tomorrow. WOOT.

The next batch of 20 or so inspections are in Baton Rouge, about 80 miles north west of NO.
Part of the trip is over a causeway across Lake Pontchartrain that sits north of NO. The water is almost over the causeway now because of hurricane Ike so I will be waiting to see how that works out. It would ease up by Sunday or Monday.

Looks like Texas is getting its butt kicked tonight, especially around Galveston which is right on the coast. We may be going there next.

later,
Dana