[Ike Anniversary] What Were You Doing a Year Ago Today?

Spent most of the day gathering supplies and covering up the windows in our upstairs apartment.

We watched Gene Norman until the power went out. Heard massive electrical dohickeys exploding.

Stayed up until about 4 AM, finals and Mig went to bed already.

Went to bed around 5 AM, just as the storm was directly overhead. Woke up 3 hours later to see the devastation.

Sat in the apartment for about 4 hours with no electricity, heard by radio reports they had cleared the freeways, so we drove out to Katy where finals' parents had power.

We helped them put their fence back up and rake all the leaves out of their yard, went back to the apartment complex on Tuesday, power was not back on.

Spent the next week trying to sleep at my apartment but it was 95 degrees inside there, I stayed with finals at the UH dorm one night, but her roommate was being a c***. I slept out at work one night on a cot. 11 days with no power.

On Day 9 a guy tried to call me on my phone for the 3rd time trying to scam me by saying I had a warrant out for my arrest and I needed to wire him 6 thousand dollars or risk being put in jail. I cussed him out for 10 minutes straight. I said things to that guy I wouldn't repeat in front of sailors.

**** You Ike.

 

We were already in SA praying the house would be okay and my family and friends would be fine.

House had about 700 in damage, family and friends were cool.

 

I was off that Friday and pretty much spent stressing out about it because we just bought a house. My parents and sister came over to ride out the storm with us...we were watching ch. 13, tracking it until the power went out. ugh, not a fun night! i was SO worried that the fence would start flying at the house...the only damage was our fence and some roof shingles. me and my fiance went to his brother's house in sugarland because they had power...we did not get the power back until a week later, woo woo!

i also discovered how hot Eric Barajas was! Been hooked to ch. 13 ever since...

 

All of my family that lives here congregated at my Uncle and Aunt's house off of Eldridge (the Power Corridor). It's a smart move because you better believe all those important companies nearby have the pull to want their power back on right away which meant that power and water was back on over there within a few hours.

We ended up staying for like a week while we waited for the power to come back on at our respective households. I just sat around with my cousins and my siblings watching movies on HBO and Showtime.

 

Stayed with my parents in Pasadena. Spent the day buying too much beer/ice and not enough food. (Me and my father figured this out while unloading and filling ice chests. It was a good feeling.) Boarded up the windows, then sat buy the pool until 10PM when the winds started picking up. Power was out by midnight.

I was out in the middle of the eye wall enjoying the view, went to bed around 4am, then woke to find EVERYTHING that could break and fly did and it covered the city. It looked way worse than Alicia. Spent the day cutting trees, helping neighbors, and sharing our generators.

I had power 6 hours later thanks to being on a hospital grid, but I didn't know this and stayed at the parents, sleeping without AC on the hardwood floors and finishing the beer. The best part was smoking all of the brisket, chicken, ham, etc. in the freezer that would have gone bad and staying up late with the family, sitting by an old oil lantern thing and watching movies on my iPod. Awesome family time.

Do. Not. Want. Another. Storm. Sitting in line for 5 hours waiting for gas if you were lucky enough to find it blew chunks.

 

Most memorable moment of that day was turning on the news early in the morning and seeing water already spraying up over the seawall and streets flooded. At least 12 hours before landfall. Just incredible.

We packed up and moved over to my parents house...less than a few miles away..to stay with them. Remember standing outside with my boys around 8 p.m. and feeling that calm before the storm.

 

STayed at home mourning the fact that my trip to NYC that weekend was not gonna happen. Couldnt get my money back on the Yankee tickets that I had bought...about $200. I was so bummed cause that was the last yr they were gonna be at that stadium. had everything planned out. was without power at our house for almost 2 weeks. that same weekend after ike hit, i headed to san antonio for about 4 days and jus hit the bar every night i was there hahaha.

 

woke up got on the beltway to go to nick's to hang out with 1560 folks





got back to the house about 1 started to get the family ready and watch news coverage of the storm, cooked an early dinner and then wiated for some of the homies to come over so we could ride out the storm together,
while i was waiting i got some good shots of the other bands of ike







hung out with my people while the storm came in



at about 3am a few of us decided to take a walk in the storm to my brother's house about a mile and a half away, probably not the smartest thing to do but it was pretty awesome, no photos from that walk but an awesome experience

 

Preying the trees in my front yard would not crash into my bedroom or garage. That night was surreal, just the winds howling and watching TV till 4am seeing the reporter on channel 11 get smashed in downtown. Funny thing(not funny but funny) was everytime they would go to him he would be getting it worse and he kept saying he thought the worse was over downtown only to be told by Neil Frank that he was wrong and the worse was still to come...

 

Worrying about my mom and family all day... Dad was out of the country on business, so it was up to my mom to make all the preparations by herself. I tried to tell her to pack up the dogs and the sister and high-tail it to Austin to come stay with me, but she wouldn't.

 

Heading to Austin to enjoy an unplanned extended vacation.

 

stocked up on water and canned goods...unsuccessfully tried to find a generator. Spent the evening in our huge walk in closet in the middle of the house...stayed up until 5 AM and watched most of the storm...a lot of it from my front porch...until a huge branch flew through the air about 5 feet from me.

Power stayed on until 4 AM...then a tree went down and took out the line. My entire grid didn't lose power...just our block because of that tree. 18 days later, it was fixed.

 

For some reason, even though I never prepare for hurricanes and don't watch the weather, I had watched a rweather report a week and a half earlier and saw that Ike was forming in the Atlantic near Africa. My first thought was, "that one's going to hit us." Just in case, I had gotten a head start on stocking up (wine, cheese, water and other essentials ) So by the night it hit I was fairly sure we were covered but I kept wondering what I might have forgotten.
Then I spent most of the night awake worried about my neighbors tree possibly falling on the house. It turned out that two other neighbors were up worrying about the same tree. It never fell and JV thought that since, at most, it would only hit one of the houses then it was a waste for the other two people to have worried about it.
Several days without power but the high point: Enjoying wine, foie gras and freshly baked bread at JV's parent's house. The foie gras just had to be eaten since the chest freezer was starting to defrost. Yum!

 

That night was exhilarating. The **** really hit the fan at 4 am. Had a huge branch fall on our driveway. After the storm, the young people on our street got together and cleared the lawns for the seniors on our street.

I had stocked up on gas and food a couple of nights beforehand. We were without power for about a week, but we survived just fine. Our food was in coolers that I kept filled with ice. We were able to cook on either our gas stove, or our propane grills (I had two). I was able to charge cell phones and run small appliances (fan, small TV, etc.) off of an inverter that was plugged into my car.

In fact, our neighbors came to our house and we cooked all their food for them (might as well cook it all - it was gonna spoil). My neighbors weren't as fortunate as me. Many of them had electric stoves and had no way to cook. Had no light. No way to charge cell phones. No way to run a fan or TV. I lent one neighbor one of my grills so that they could cook.

At night, I would light up my propane camping lantern and bring chairs and tables to my driveway. We would all sit in my driveway watching news on a little black-and-white TV that I was powering from my inverter.

Overall, we did pretty durned well.
 

 

I was watching KPRC flip out about how high the water was in Galveston at noon. Went out and got some beer and settled in. It was my wife's first storm and she was 7ish weeks pregnant. I tried to get her to go visit her friend in Austin, but she said she wasn't going to leave. Power went out at 1am and didn't come back for 13 days. It wasn't bad for me, but my wife has a different take on the whole thing.

 

Was at home in Sugar Land with the family. Took pictures of everything. Also got some good shots of the sky before the storm. I wanted to stay up as long as I could so I could see the storm come through, but I eventually fell asleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night to help my dad semi-patch a hole (we did what we could) where this turbine/chimney/exhaust looking thing had been blown off. The rain was still pouring.

Water damage in my house was pretty bad. Also lost a small tree, and a the backyard fence. I'm sure it was much worse for other people. That night and the following days will definitely remain in my mind for a long time.

 

It was a beautiful day here in MN but I couldn't enjoy it watching the streaming video from KPRC. I was about to board up my own windows in sympathy..

 

Basically spent most of the day watching the news and surfing the BBS about how high the water in Galveston was. We had gone out and gotten water, food, and candles the previous few days so we were pretty much set. It was pretty trippy listening to the rain and wind though. I didn't think it was possible to have a torrential for 12 hours straight....pretty insane. We spent the night downstairs in the living room.....I remember the exact moment the power went out, and I even said "well, I guess we won't be seeing that for a while." We were without power for 13 days, but luckily I spent 5 of those days in Chicago, so it wasn't THAT bad.

 

Watched news coverage pretty much all day. Seems like work was cancelled for the day to give folks time to prepare. Stayed up to around midnight when the power cut out. Couldn't watch tv any more, so went to sleep. Slept until five in the morning. Woke up to the breakfast room window leaking.

Was without power fortunately for only 36 hours, returned about noon on Sunday. Helped pick up our yard and our neighbor's yard who were vacationing in Canadia at the time.