Fires

No rain + extreme heat + high winds = a lot of fires across Texas.

We had fires all around us last night. Luckily none of them got any closer than about 15 miles away from us. There was a really bad one in Bastrop (southeast of Austin) that destroyed over 400 homes... I think they are still trying to get that one under control. There were some in Pflugerville (north east of us), a couple in Cedar Park (north of us) and a pretty bad one in the Steiner Ranch neighborhood (about 15 miles west of us). There are/were several more in the area. Apparently there were several in other parts of Texas as well.

Some old church friends of ours live in Steiner Ranch and had to evacuate, but we saw a facebook post this morning that they think their house is OK. I just saw a video on the news of a personal video taken by a Steiner Ranch resident and it was just awful. So many homes lost. I haven't heard too much about people being injured though, so thats good.

There were just SO many fires, that we decided we ought to be prepared just in case we were asked to evacuate. Matt put together a few things that he considered the "essentials." We packed a few clothes, the computer (which has all of our pictures), some dog food for Ginny, and all of Matt's musical instruments. :) When I got up this morning I informed Matt that he also needed to add the fire extinguisher to the pile! I made Ginny pose for the picture since we consider her "essential." :)

It sure is tough to try to decide what to pack and what not to pack. Unfortunately, not everyone who had to evacuate last night had that option. We didn't have any immediate threats last night, but we are still at "high risk" for fires today. We're keeping a watch on it and trying to stay safe!