The Damage Done

We were very lucky that none of our homes sustained any damage. Our yards were all a mess. Tree limbs big and small everywhere. We lost all of our wooden fences along the back. But, as you could see in our before pictures, the fences we had were not the best. Our old house lost one of the big trees in the front - hitting the house and the neighbor's car on the way down.

The big news story was that most, I mean 95% of homes and businesses, were in the dark. The winds downed power lines, blew transformers, knocked over huge trees, etc. We did not get power back for 7 days. We missed the luxuries that come with electricity, but had fun despite it. We talked to neighbors, shared ice, had picnics and ate everything that was in the freezer. My office and Jewels' office had power. I took the kids to the office with me that week - it was wild but cool! By the second day of "no power" the hum of generators filled the air. By the fifth day we had the hum in our backyard! I cannot thank Jewels' co-worker, Adam, enough for the loan.

The minute the power was restored the neighborhood went back inside. For a week, we had friendly conversations, checked in on one another, compared previous hurricane experiences... When the lights and air conditioning came back on the conversations ended.

Hurricane Party!

We hosted Todd and Tiffany (and family) and David during the hurricane. Our yard is mostly tree free with reinforced (with plywood) outside walls. Both of their yards have many large trees. (We were all more afraid of limbs and branches falling on our house than anything) David's family was already visiting Barbara's family so they extended their trip. I cleaned and washed like a mad woman all day Friday and Saturday. We rearranged furniture so we'd have more sleeping space in the center of the house. David set up his laptop as central command. We had batteries, phones, radios and anything else that needed charging lined up on the kitchen counter. We put the kids mattresses in the hallway (see last picture). All the big kids slept there. The two littlest girls slept in #3's bedroom with beds pulled close to the inside wall and closet. ALL of the kids slept soundly all night.

Sunday, Sept 14th was my birthday. Tiffany was sweet to bring a cake for a little party. I was not expecting my "birthday party" to turn into the "hurricane party" that it was...

The storm was horrible. The winds began to pick up around 10pm. By mid-night it was raining hard and the winds were blowing increasingly stronger. We watched the dark sky light up with transformers blowing like firecrackers. At one point, David decided to go home. He was gone a few minutes, then the sky in his home's direction lit bright. 10 minutes later he was back at our place. That entire side of the neighborhood lost power. We still had power at mid-night, 1:00am, and 2:00am. At 2:15am it was light's out...for more than a week.

Thank goodness for radios! We all slept on and off. The rain and winds were so bad we couldn't see out the windows. Ike was still going strong at daylight. The eye of the storm never passed over us - the winds went from one direction to the next in seconds. The noise that accompanied that wind change was loud, very loud, and scary. At 6:00am I was praying that the storm would just end. I couldn't handle the noise anymore.

By 10:00am things had quieted. We all ventured outside to see the damage...

Pre-IKE

The entire state was in a buzz the second week of September. Ike was a huge storm in the Gulf - covering the entire water mass. Early in the week, all indications had it going to Corpus Christi. By Wednesday, it was changing direction. By Thursday we were all buying water and other hurricane supplies. Most non-essential workers were allowed to stay home Friday to prepare their homes. Jewels worked hard preparing the yard. We did not board up windows - mainly because we kind of thought we were in a "Rita Situation". (Hurricane Rita was suppose to rip our area down to studs...we barely got rain.) But, as a good husband, Jewels listened to me nag and tied our outdoor furniture down. By Saturday morning we knew we were getting a direct hit.

We took pictures before the storm...just in case we needed insurance pictures...

Labor Day 2008

We had a small labor day gathering at our place Labor Day weekend 2008. Little did any of us know that the next week would bring big changes to our area....