Hurricane Aftermath

I've been busy lately dealing with this recent hurricane (Ike) and the after effects. The greater Houston area got hit pretty hard. The media likes to focus on Galveston, but the rest of us inlanders suffered quite a bit too. Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula got smacked, and I'm very sorry. But the 4 to 5 million people living nearby are dealing with some bad stuff too.

We were extremely fortunate to get power so soon after the storm. Most of the Houston area is still in the dark. Some places will be without power for several weeks to possibly a month or more given the damage that was done to vital transmission lines.

Aside from many places being without power, the other big issue at hand is the lack of gasoline. The very few stations that are open right now are swamped with people. I've read reports that it takes only a couple of hours for these stations to run out of gas after they're replished by a tanker, and the tankers aren't coming real fast.

A few grocery stores are open and have dry goods only. All schools are closed. Most businesses are still closed too (including my employer). Houston could very well be in a state of anarchy and chaos, but most people are dealing with the lack of vital resources pretty calmly.

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So what have we been up to? Well, it's been non-stop work pretty much since before the hurricane. We prepped our house and yards before the storm came.



We lost some sections of our fence, a load of branches from our trees, and have a new roof leak. We faired pretty well. There are those much less fortunate. Some of the major damage in the area reported is from large trees falling on houses. We also did see some outright wind damage on some roofs.



Sunday morning was the kick in the face. We got 12+ inches of rain in about 2 hours. Our street flooded (as did many other areas) and our neighbors who had parked out on the street got their vehicles flooded.



We've been working every day to clean up the yards and get our house straight again. Thank God for this recent cold front! The temps outside are quite nice, and for the first time since last winter, we have the AC off and the windows open :-)

We're thankful that we faired reasonably well. We're surpised that we didn't get more damage than we did in our area despite seeing winds so high. So, say a prayer for the folks down here in the Houston area.

p.s. I have a ton of photos from our trip to Big Bend last week. I'll be getting them online shortly, so stay tuned! :-)