Getting "back to normal" after Hurricane Ike

Let me start by saying we are thankful that we, our family and friends did not sustain serious damage to our homes.

However...Mom and Sam and Sharon still do not have power! I think they are starting to lose their sense of humor (about being without power). Thankfully, we had power almost immediately, so everyone has been able to come over to our house for a hot meal, hot shower and to run a load of laundry through our washer and dryer. Slowly but surely Scott, Lauren, Chris, Joe and Pat had their power turned back on this week. Although we had power, we did not have TV or Internet, so we missed a lot of the news coverage of the aftermath. The newspaper and radio were our only sources of information.

Before I get into the Hurricane details, here are are some pictures of Reese the week before Ike hit.

Reese with her bunny (almost 8 months).



Cheese!



Last Thursday, September 11, 2008, it became apparent that Hurricane Ike was making its way towards the Houston area. That morning, we took Reese for a doctor check up and learned that she weighs 20 lbs and is 28 inches long! Whoa!!! She is a growing girl! Afterwards, Matt and I decided to swing by Kroger to gather hurricane supplies before heading back to work. We knew the grocery stores and gas stations would be a mad house as the day went on. It was only 10:30 a.m. and the store was packed. I was able to buy a loaf of bread, can goods, 1lb of hamburger meat, spaghetti & sauce, water and a bag of chocolate (all of which came in handy later in the weekend).

On Friday morning, we packed up and headed to Aunt Sharon's house at Lake Conroe. Our motto during Hurricanes is "Go North!" We were not confident the roof from our house built in 1939 would sustain the 100 mph CAT 2 winds that were expected on Saturday morning.

Mom cam over and picked up Grandma Ruth and they hunkered down at Mom and Sam's.

Sharon ended up with a house full. The manifest included Andy, Angela (and their dog named Pancho and cat named Magnus), Scott, Lauren, Reese, Matt and myself.

Reese did well and really enjoyed all of the attention she got from Lauren and Angela. She met her first doggie named Pancho.



As you can imagine, we didn't get much sleep on Friday night as the winds began around 11:00 p.m. Reese slept like a little angel, but Matt and I were up on and off to check the news. I don't know when the rain began, but at some point during the night it made its way through Sharon's living room windows and upstairs sliding glass doors. Sharon, Andy and Angela stacked up towels and buckets trying to catch the leaking water. We lost power around 4:30 a.m. and Sharon still doesn't have power as of this Saturday evening.

As you can see, Reese is fine tuning her sitting up skills.



She also found a new favorite toy; a water bottle.



When we finally ventured out on Saturday this is what we found along Sharon's street. Trees and debris galore! Huge trees were down everywhere.




Look at the base of this tree; it's hard to imagine a force so strong that it could do this.



The tree above fell onto this Toyota...ouch!



We stayed at Sharon's Saturday night as we didn't know what the roadways would be like as we headed back to Houston. We feared running into floods, falling power lines and debris.

This is what we found when we arrived back in town on Sunday around Noon. The fence is the side of our house.




The neighborhood was a real mess! A tree fell on a house a few houses down. The kids were bored and offered to rake our sidewalk for $10.



This is another picture from the side of our property.



Most of our neighbors had already started cleaning up the debris in their yards before we arrived back home.





Matt, Scott and Chris spent Sunday and Monday cleaning up. They did a superb job!







I went to Kroger on Sunday and it was an eerie place to be. The store was running on generators, so most of the lights were out. There was a line of folks waiting for ice; you could only buy 2 bags per person. Bread was practically non-existent. I was able to grab a frozen loaf of french bread the bakery pulled out and place on the shelf. Meat was hard to find; luckily I bought 2 packs of chicken because when I went back on Monday there was almost no meat to be found except lamb and ribs.

Mom had to go back to work on Monday, which I thought was crazy since most of the city still didn't have power. The street lights were all out, so every light was a four way stop. People in Houston already drive crazy and when they don't have lights to guide them it's just flat out dangerous. I took my life in my own hands every time I drove.

I headed back to work on Tuesday and most folks still didn't have power. The ladies at work all had "bad hair" but looked great and hung in there! Our building didn't suffer too much damage, but glass was strewn over the street and walkways from the windows above. Some offices had water damage, but nothing too bad. On my way to work, I saw cars lined up to get gas as most stations are not operational yet since they do not have power. Fortunatley, Matt and I work close to home, so we do not use much gas. We filled up both cars the Thursday before the storm hit.

Matt headed back to work on Wednesday. His office is downtown and the building didn't suffer much damage. Some of the buildings downtown had major damage with windows blown out. Among these was the JP Morgan Chase building.

We are very fortunate and send our thoughts and prayers to those who lost their homes, businesses and communities during this tragic storm. Today, 1 million (46%) of CenterPoint Energy customers are still without power in the Houston area.