Written
by my grandmother in Houston. I found it interesting and thought I
would share it with you. And when they get my Aunt’s power back on I
should have some pictures to share as well.
It
was Thursday afternoon on Sept. 11, 2008 as we sat awaiting the arrival
of Ike. It seemed as if the entire city and surrounding suburbs were
entirely shut down after residents had cleaned the grocery store shelves
of all food and water, and drained the gas stations dry. I wonder why
people wait until the last minute to make their preparations. It was
kind of eerie with the city shut down and now it was just a matter of
waiting. Hurricanes can be so boring while we keep waiting and watching,
waiting and watching, while they speed up and slow down, weaken and
strengthen, veer right and loop left. Of course I thought up until the
last minute that Ike would turn. Even though I was prepared, I never
thought it would ever come in here. Wrong!!
Finally
by Friday evening it was very apparent from the news reports that it
was not going to turn. A widow lady who lives in a mobile home came to
shelter with us, along with her six cats and a parrot. The parrot went
to your Aunt’s house! We watched it coming in on T.V. The extent of it
was the most surprising. It practically filled the Gulf of Mexico. We
have friends in southeast Texas in Lake Jackson and friends in northeast
Texas in Orange and the storm raged the entire state. We boarded up the
three big windows in the front and put everything moveable in the
garage, had our food and water in. We watched the news until about 10:00
p.m. and then went to bed. I couldn’t sleep so got up again and stayed
up until a little after midnight. Shortly after I went back to bed was
the end of our power for the next 72 hours. It was soooo dark with no
lights on in any house or any street lights, or moon or anything. We had
to use a flashlight to find our way to the bathroom.
I
can’t say that the noise of the wind was that horrible. I have heard
worse in Blackfoot, Idaho many nights when I was sure the house would
blow off its foundation. So the noise wasn’t too bad. I slept through it
until about 4:00 a.m.
Our
next door neighbor, who had a tree go through his roof said that at one
point he looked out the window and one of the huge pine trees in our
front yard was swaying down to the ground clear across the street and
the next time he looked it was swaying clear into his yard. He quit
looking after that!
I
got up at dawn and looked out. Wow, it was unbelievable. The hurricane
was still going on. Leaves were smacked all over my windows. You
couldn’t even see the back yard. It was covered with limbs, branches,
leaves and debris of every kind. And the wind blowing the rain was a
sight to behold.
Later
it died down and we went out to survey the damage. Our house was not
damaged at all and neither was your Aunt’s. However, the neighborhood
looked like a war zone. There were limbs and branches everywhere. Huge,
huge oak trees were down everywhere. They had crashed into houses,
blocked roads, torn up sidewalks and driveways with their roots as they
went down. Power and phone lines were dangling everywhere. About 40-50%
of the fences were down. It was just an incredible sight.
What
amazed me so much was the fact that, even as it was pouring rain people
were already out starting to clean up. I felt that it was rather
dangerous as limbs were still falling from trees, but there they all
were. Everyone seemed to pitch in to help everyone else out. There was a
huge tree blocking the road just three houses from us and our next door
neighbor was right in the middle of it with his chain saw.
We
hooked up an old land line phone and for a time had telephone service,
but it eventually went out too and so we had no land line, no cell
phone, no wireless internet, and no power. The power of course was the
worst. The first night it was rather hot and humid, but early in the
morning a big thunder and lightning storm came in and really cooled
things off, so that helped considerably with the lack of fans or a/c.
However, it also caused more flooding now that Ike had already begun.
Some people had generators, but very few, and the ones that did kept
running out of gas. Those generators use an amazing amount of gas. On
Monday a couple of gas stations opened up and the lines were just
humongous. About a three hour wait. And of course they had to get the
police out there to keep everyone in line. We can’t manage ourselves,
you know.
We
did lose all of our food in our freezer and fridge. I said I would
definitely get a generator after this, but then after seeing how much
gas they take and how difficult it is to get gas I may reconsider. It
was quite eerie around here during the nights without any lights. And
eerie to drive past totally empty shopping centers.
The schools are closed all week. Some sustained damage, but mostly it is the fact that we have no gas for the school buses.
The
Bush Intercontinental Airport sustained substantial damage. I think
they are resuming flights on Wednesday. Hobby Airport also had damage.
So we were pretty isolated. We couldn’t fly out, couldn’t drive out, and
couldn’t call out. Your Uncle’s mom passed away and he had to drive the
five hours to Dallas in order to get a flight out to California.
We
were fortunate in that we did get our power back on in 72 hours. Also
we did not lose our water and some of our friends did. Your Aunt who
lives just two blocks from us, is still without power at this time. I
don’t know why they can’t get to her.
All
in all we were very blessed. It has been a tremendous clean up job, and
lots of lessons learned, but none of us was hurt and no damage done to
the house. The Lord blessed us greatly, and we pray for those who lost
their homes or lives. We are grateful to all of you who offered prayers
in our behalf.
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