Ike

Hurricane Ike hit Houston (and of course moreso Galveston) full force. We are very, very blessed to have come out of it as well as we did. Patrick and I both got off work early on Thursday and were off all day Friday for people to prep/evacuate where necessary. Needless to say, it was necessary for people to take at least minimal precautions everywhere. I don't think that we realized quite what Ike intended to bring us until we were in the middle of it. Patrick and I have decided that as soon as the city is up and running again, we will buy the necessary items for a hurricane kit for next time. Considering there are already other storms in the gulf. Next time, we will be prepared.

We knew for sure we'd be without power for awhile, but we didn't know how long. So Friday before the storm hit, we went over to my parents. They had boarded up and done all kinds of things to prepare. I knew I'd be going crazy if we got stuck in our house due to flooding, so we went to visit beforehand so I could store up some out-of-the-house time. Then we went home, taped the windows, spread out some candles, strategically placed our flashlights, and got ready. We started watching a movie in bed around 11. The power flickered sometime around midnight. At about 1 am, we lost power. At that point, I thought the storm was in full force. It was howling and throwing rain at our incredibly old windows. Several hours later, I realized I had been wrong. It only got worse. For over 6 hours, Ike raged full force against our 40 year old townhome. And it's original windows. And the trees on both sides. It was insane. We had covered up all the windows, so when my mom called at 9 am to see if we were ok, we thought it was still the middle of the night. We went outside to assess the damage and were just amazed at what a hurricane can do.

The neighbors' 40 year old oak tree had fallen into our front yard. Completely uprooted. It missed our front window by less than a foot. I could stick my hand out the window and touch it. It almost just crashed into our house. Crazy. We just stood in the rain in our front yard and stared amazed at the damage. We were SO so blessed. No roof damage, no limbs in our windows, no flooding. The street looked like a warzone, but amazingly nothing had actually affected our home. (Pictures to come.)

Even so, we were without power. That morning, Patrick took a shower (with what was apparently the last of our water) and we headed to my parents. They had some roof damage, a couple leaks, but also faired well. We called lots of people to make sure they were ok. Then we went back home and found that we had no water on top of no power. And then we got GREAT news. Patrick's parents got power back that afternoon! We said we'd be right there and were thrilled to have air conditioning. We actually had some fun. So many people were without power that we were all just congregating at places that had it. This morning, I was supposed to work (they apparently got power yesterday) but when I got there this morning they had lost it again so I came over to our house which is right across the street from my office and we HAD POWER!!! I was so excited. We came back over here and started cleaning. And we are feeling very blessed to be here in our air conditioning. Still not sure if work has power or not. Patrick's working from home tomorrow. We are praying for everyone, especially those in the Galveston area who have lost their homes. There are so many of them. I can't imagine what that's like.

Pictures to come tomorrow. Lesson learned: next time there's a hurricane like this, we are boarding up our windows. Even if no one else around us does!