Hurricane Ike – Updated

Today is Sunday, September 14th, two days after Hurricane Ike hit the Houston/Galveston area. Brent and I were very blessed, the only damage we had were to a few shingles on our roof and Brent has already repaired them. Our electricity went out at 3:00 a.m. during the storm, we were sleeping in our master bedroom closet because that was the only room in the house that didn’t have a window. If we hadn’t been in there, I would not have slept at all. It was still scary because once the winds got to full force (they estimate 80-100 mph where where are), things were hitting our house and we didn’t know what was happening outside.

The next day we prepared ourselves for the heat and living without electricity and just after I opened our windows around 11:00 a.m., our electricity came back on. I couldn’t believe it, but as soon as we knew for sure it was going to stay on, we called family so they could come over and stay with us.

God bless those who lost much, especially those down in the coastal areas. The news on TV is continuous and it appears Galveston took a big hit. There was one video where they were showing the Hooters that was over the water on the seawall, it wasn’t there, not even the pillars it stood on. It was totally gone.  Please be safe and take care in the aftermath, and pray for those who weren’t so lucky.

Reba

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Today may be the last day I’m able to make a post for a while depending on how well Houston handles Hurricane Ike. We went to bed last night and the winds were still only 100 mph and this morning they’ve increased to 105. They’re saying landfall will be around 1:00 a.m. tonight, so there’s not much time left for it to strengthen, which is very good news.

Brent and I have decided to stay home. We made hotel reservations in San Antonio and thought we’d go, but he works in retail and felt an obligation to his employees and customers to stay. Even though we had today scheduled as a vacation day, it just didn’t feel right to him to leave his employees without a manager, especially since the company’s headquarters has given no direction as to how long they should remain open. We had planned to go to Austin to watch our youngest daughter Brittany play in a volleyball tournament at University of Texas (they played #3 ranked UT last night and actually won one set ~ a big deal for a Southland Conference team). Hurricane Ike trumped the volleyball.

We live in the very northwest section of Houston in a suburb called Cypress and the prediction is that the winds here will be 75-100 mph. We’ve done all the normal stuff, we have water, food, batteries, candles. We exchanged cell numbers with those neighbors that we hadn’t exchanged numbers with in the past. I wish we had remembered propane for our grill before the stores ran out. We’ve brought everything in from the yard. We’re able to get one car (our better one) into the garage. I took digital photos of everything. I cleaned the bathtubs yesterday and today we will fill them with water. We did not board up the windows, actually, no one in our neighborhood has (yet), so today we will move our furniture away from windows toward the middle of the room just in case a window breaks. I’ve already touched base with my kids, actually we’re staying in constant contact, today we’ll call other family members that we haven’t talked to yet.

In watching the media all day yesterday, last night and this morning, it appears our city leaders have done a very good job of communicating and evacuating the areas that need to be evacuated. It’s nothing like when Rita was threatening us three years ago, but no where near as many people are leaving either. Many gas stations are out of gas, but they say tankers are on their way to refill. The freeways were jammed up a bit last night but this morning, they’re clear.

One thing I saw this morning on TV that’s a bit scary was a reporter down in Galveston standing on the seawall. For those of you who don’t know what the Galveston seawall looks like, it’s a concrete wall that runs the length of the island that’s about 15′ tall. Usually, there’s a beach at the base that’s about 100 yards or more (depending on the tide) from the base of the seawall to where the water from the Gulf of Mexico rolls in. At the top of the seawall there’s a wide sidewalk where people normally ride bikes, jog, or stroll up and down the island, and then there’s a 5-lane street (one’s a turning lane). The reporter was standing across the street from the seawall and behind him you could see the waves crashing over the seawall onto the street. People who had not left yet but were heading out, people who were born and raised there who stopped to talk, said they’d never seen the water like that this many hours before a hurricane actually hit. They were taking heed and leaving.

We expect to be without electricity fairly quickly, in fact, by the time some of you read this in your feed reader or email, it’ll probably already be out. We don’t have big trees, but there are electricity poles where we live, it’s not underground. We actually have a flight to California on Thursday and I’m wondering if the airport will be operating. I sure hope so, if we’re out of electricity for 5 days, it’ll be nice to get out of here. Anyway, I don’t know when my next post will be. If we get to California on Thursday, I’ll update you to let you know how we fared.

We’re ready, but still a bit scared. It’s been 25 years since Hurricane Alicia hit our area and I remember being scared then. We made it through that one very well with no damage, we didn’t even lose our electricty and I pray for the same with Ike. I also pray that the people of our wonderful city come through this well.

If you’re in the Houston area, God Bless you and be safe.

We’ll see you on the other side of Ike.

Reba

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