One Year After Ike

Hurricane Ike hit one year ago today. If you were following my blog then, you might remember that my husband was out of town and Alex and I drove up to my mom's in Dallas. We ended up going on a vacatioin and were gone for 2 1/2 weeks. Our street was without electricity for 8 days. Our losses included all of the food in our refrigerator & freezer, a lot of limbs off of our big ash tree in the backyard (& other limbs), and our fence. When we returned home, we found the mess above.
And this is what we did about it (and it sat there for weeks, but I understand and am grateful it eventually got picked up!).

Above is our ash tree last year.

And this year after a major trimming and time to grow again.

Part of our fence last year.

And our new fence. I love it! It is quite a bit taller and looks wonderful.

I know many people suffered much more loss than we did, including the lives of loved ones. I am grateful that our damage wasn't too costly and that, most of all, we were all safe.

We're Home!

After about 2 1/2 weeks away because of Hurricane Ike, we're home!!!

In our neighborhood there are fences temporarily patched or supported by beams, missing trees, and piles of limbs and bags of leaves at everyone's house. They are saying it could be weeks before they make the first pass through each neighborhood to pick up this "green litter." So, thinks look different, but it is still home!

Here are a few photos from when my husband and I came back to clean up about 1 1/2 weeks ago.

The "green litter"

One of our fences

Our only tree that had large limbs damaged

We have power!

Hi, everyone. Our power got restored on Saturday, which was a suprise as we'd heard on Friday that it'd be at least a week. But, Alex and I had planned on going to Kansas, so we are up here having fun. Today, we went to a museum that covers Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Alex even earned her 3rd Junior Ranger badge. Unfortunately, I haven't loaded software to download photos on our new computers, so I guess it'll have to wait. I can't wait to share all of our adventures with you!!!

24 Hours in Houston

On Tuesday morning at 5 am, my husband and I (and a friend) headed back to Houston. I hadn't wanted to post this on the blog before (security reasons) but my husband had been out of town when Ike hit and that was one reason I didn't want to stay home with just Alexandra and myself.

Anyway, we had to go by Bush airport to get their cars and then head we headed back to our house. I was surprised by quite a few things. First of all, electricity was out even 100 miles north of Houston! And, anytime we did pass a gas station, there were TONS of cars in line. They said the wait was taking 1 to 2 hours at the pumps. Also, I was surprised not to see a lot of damage - just a few signs which were torn up, LOTS of baby trees bent over, and every once in awhile you'd see a roof damaged or a few utility poles down.

We'd been told what to expect when we got to our neighborhood, but it was still a surprise. Lots of fences down. Lots of limbs down. Some trees down. TONS of "green" debris all over the lawns of those who hadn't cleaned up yet (like us) or piled in tall piles and bags of those who had cleaned.

Our yard wansn't as bad as expected. We lost the fence on 2 sides, but some neighbors had already lifted one up and "patched" it for now. The other one had damaged several bushes, but they might survive. The pool was NASTY and our neighbors had already cleaned it some.

It was neat to see so many neighbors out. We talked to some and they updated us on what had been going on. Our neighbors had even been having cook outs some nights! They whole neighborhood is just really becoming so much more neighborly through this ordeal!

Then, we had a quick snack, changed clothes, and got to work. (I did take photos, but I don't have the cord to download them so I'll have to do that later.)

We started on the freezer in the garage. Yikes! What a stink! I told my husband it smelled like dead animal... and he said it was! Uh... of course. Anyway, we were thankful there was only a small leak as I was afraid a lot of our stuff on that crowded side of the garage would have been ruined, but it wasn't. We got it cleaned out and then did the same with the refrigerator which wasn't nearly as bad. Some chocolate ice cream had leaked and the ice maker had leaked but a neighbor had put down some beach towels for us.

After that, we went outside and worked on proping the other fence back up. That was a LOT of back-wrenching work. I'm sure it took more than an hour, but we got it put back up and the gate will actually work now.

Then, my husband trimmed some broken branches while I dragged limbs to the curb and raked and bagged small limbs, leaves, pine needles, and pine cones. This took hours and I was aching afterwards. All together, we worked from about 11 - 5:30 pm.

Then, we went to look at our plane - and part of our part of town. It was so strange to see NO power anywhere! We saw more damage - some roofs, lots of fences, some trees, a few windows... but nothing too bad. At our little airport, most of the north facing hangars near ours were damaged... the planes, too. But, ours faces south and was unhurt.

We then visited some friends at the back of our neighborhood. They had just gotten power back on! And, so had part of the neighborhood next to us. (But, we are still without power.) They are the ones who had a tree fall between their house and their neighbors. It had already been removed. In their backyard, though, was a huge pine tree which fell away from their house. Thankfully, their neighbor's pine trees had "caught" it and it didn't hit their house. And, thankfully it didn't hit our friends house, either. It was a huge, heavy tree!

After that, we went home for dinner. I was aching and took some Tylenol and let my husband cook dinner. He warmed himself a can of soup on our gas stove and made me some Ramen noodles. It was funny that by now it was getting dark and he had to use a flashlight to see if the water was boiling. We ate our soups and some crackers and I had a little container of pineapples.

Then, it was getting pretty dark and it was almost 8 pm. We called Alexandra (our phones had started working a few hours before this) and I almost fell asleep talking to her. (We'd been up since 5 am and done a lot of hard work). I'd planned to read with my little book lamp, but I fell asleep about 8:15. A little while later, we heard a knock on the door. My husband went and answered it and it was our friend who'd gotten power back with 2 fans that RUN ON BATTERIES! I've never heard of such a thing, but we were SO grateful. The breeze felt great even though we are having unusually cool temps and low humidity for Houston.

I woke up around 8 am (yes, 12 hours of sleep!) and went downstairs and had some breakfast - a granola bar, a Little Debbie's oatmeal cream pie, and a juice box. :-) Then, I washed the dishes from last night - with no garbage disposal, I had to pour out the food we hadn't eaten - and picked up the towels that had been lying around the house where the fridge had leaked. Then, I swept and mopped the kitchen/dining area.

After my shower, I put my hair up in a pony tail (no hair dryer, so can't fix my hair) and sat on a bed with a mirror to put on makeup. Then, I loaded up some things to head back to Dallas.

My husband went in to work with a skeleton crew to see what they could do. They got power back early in the afternoon and the IT guys were busy getting everything up and running. Those who could make it will be back at work this morning.

Now, we're just waiting for the electricity to come back on so we can go home. By next Wednesday, they only expect to have 60-75% of the Houston area with power! I know ours is "expected" to be on any where from tomorrow (Friday) to Tuesday. We'll see!

In the meantime, I'm praising God for His hand of protection on so many of us. I'm praising Him for cooler weather and for all the workers and volunteers who are helping our area out. And, praising Him that Galveston wasn't hurt as bad as expected.

In the midst of this, I didn't realize how many other areas around the US had been hit. My prayers are with you all, too, as you recover from Ike and power outages, etc. Again, thanks for your prayers, too!

Woohoo! Go, boys, go!!!

I'm still safe in the Dallas area and hoping to head home Tuesday morning, though we're still without electricity at this point. We're hoping to bring supplies to our neighbors; clean out our refrigerator and freezer; take photos of our damage; and contact the insurance company.

We saw convoys of electrical trucks, tree trimmers, and even trucks pulling generators travling towards Houston and Galveston this morning. With each group of trucks, my response was "Woohoo! Go, boys, go!" much to Alexandra's annoyance. :-) But, I'm so happy that help is on the way!

I'll check in again soon and thanks again for your prayers!

The Morning After Ike

Just a quick update. We are still up north in the Dallas area... and are expecting to feel some of the affects from Ike as a Tropical Storm this afternoon and evening. I did talk to 3 friends from our neighborhood today.

Some friends at the back of our neighborhood reported electricity was out at 4 am; 2 large trees down (75-100 foot tall - one theirs & one their neighbors) - 1 landed on a fence and 1 landed between the 2 houses but did some damage to each; other fences down.

At my house, no one has ventured outside yet and they are still experiencing tropical storm winds and will be for quite a few more hours. From what they can see we have the following damage:

• the landscaping, including tall palms, around my pool is badly damaged - we had 2 huge palm trees that are broken and torn (I know I have some photos of our pool on the blog, but I can't find them right now)
• all of the fence along the side of the house is down and large pieces of the fence behind me is gone - I don't know about the other side
• we have 3 large trees - there is no report on one of them (no one can see it from their house) but the other 2 are standing, but have large branches down
• thankfully, NO FLOODING! (as our house is on the corner and always the first to be threatened)

It's not over yet, but thankfully things look pretty good. I have no idea when we'll be able to go home, but I'll hopefully know more tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks again for all of your prayers! Please continue to pray and I'll let you know when I hear more.

It's looking bad...

I'm so thankful that I chose to leave the Houston area this morning. We had an easy time getting out with just regular traffic.

I've been hearing projections of Ike producing 80-100 mph winds at my house! Thankfully, they think it'll keep moving and not sit on top of us creating flooding. It looks like the worst we'll get is the high winds - but those are HIGH winds!

I'm praying for all of you in south Texas. I can't wait to come home and it was hard to leave everyone & everything behind. Hopefully, we'll be able to come back on Sunday or Monday, but for now we're waiting and praying for the best. And, thanks to my friends around the country who are praying, too! I know we need those prayers to see us all safely through this.

- Dana

We're Safe Up North

Hi again, everyone. After checking out the forcast this morning, I decided that Alexandra and I should head up north to my mom's in the Dallas area. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and I'll try to keep you updated as I find out more of what happens in our area. I'm praying for all of our friends who stayed put. Looks like they might be in for quite a wild ride!
- Dana

Hurricane Ike

It looks like Hurricane Ike is heading more or less our way. We're planning on staying put at this point. Someone sent me a link to a neat interactive storm tracker. With it you can view the various forecast models, wind probabilites, your distance from the center of the storm, and much more. It's a great way to keep tabs on Ike!

Hello, Dolly

For the past 2 days, Texas has been dealing with Hurricane Dolly. Although we are on the "wet side" of it, we are far enough away that we haven't been hit very bad.

It was a crazy day yesterday, though. When a hurricane comes (for those of you outside of hurricane territory), you get bands of rain. Usually, it'll rain for an hour or so, then let up, then rain some more. Well, yesterday, we were litterally getting "bands" of rain that lasted only a minute or two! In between, we'd have up to a couple of hours of sunshine or clouds and then another short rain. It was strange.

Today, Alexandra and I had fun by taking one of her friends to see a wonderful movie, Kit Kittridge. During about the last hour of the movie, we started hearing thunder and rain. The skies had been clear when we had arrived, so I hadn't even brought in my umbrella. (Silly me!) So, when the movie was over, we looked outside. It was pouring and there was water standing everywhere - on the sidewalk, in the parking lot... And, the car was a LONG walk away.

I had on brand new sandals (again, silly me!) so I took them off and we set off. Of course, we got soaked. And, the streets had a lot of standing water so traffic was slow. But, we made it home OK, though a little later than expected.

I think we've seen the end of Dolly, and we really got off lightly. We are praying for the people down near South Padre, though! It's been a rough ride for them.

Here comes the rain...

On Monday, we got a lot of rain... and fast. And, sadly for moms picking up kids from school, it came right around 3 pm. (And, I got so caught up with other things that I forgot to take more photos - this is pretty early on in the "flood.")

We got over 5 inches in a couple of hours and got the worst flooding we've seen in our 11 years here - even worse than a tropical storm & a hurricane! Thankfully, it was only the streets that flooded. But, moms & kids were stuck in their cars in various driveways - we had a mom & kids next door to us and another mom across the street. And, kids were stuck at the school. And, cars were flooded in the street.

We had a lady who drove into the intersection near us and her car stalled. We sat and visited with her for over 2 hours. And, we had a great visit, though I was sorry for the cirucumstances!

We watched as buses continued to drop kids off - and run over our trash can. We had to laugh when the bus driver honked at this new friend's stalled car because she wanted it to move. And, then we sympathized with her as she pulled her window down and had to yell at the kids several times to be quiet.

The good part in all of this was seeing how neighbors helped neighbors. And how teenagers helped out!

Four teenagers pushed this lady's car out of the flooded water and down to her house 2 blocks away. Two of the teenagers retrieved my trashcan, recycle bin, and some wooden boards that had floated away.

It was sad to see moms & kids walking by in the high water trying to get home. And, an older gentleman came by in his dress slacks and tennis shoes. Another father carried his toddler son AND his school-aged daughter across the flooded intersection.

There was a funny moment, though. We saw was a squirrel who swam across the flooded street. None of us realized they would swim! I guess he or she had to get home!

I'm sorry for the damage caused to so many people - mainly to their cars like the lady we visited with. But, I'm thankful our houses were safe. (When a car drove by, the water got within a foot of my garage! And, our pool crested, but it's done that several times.) I know other people are dealing with drought, so I pray we all get the kind of weather we need at this time.