Apologies for not posting after the storm. Ike, One Year Later

First let me apologize for the cliff hanger type ending of my Ike blogging. The power went out at about 3:00 am and I hadn't set up a dial up account with which to post updates on just generator power (I added this to our hurricane planning, so it shouldn’t happen next time). In the days after the storm, we were preoccupied with keeping the generator running and cleaning up the debris around our house. We were also pretty shell-shocked. Some coastal area communities were simply gone. Takes kind of a toll on your energy.

I guess I just haven't felt like updating the storm blog since there was no inherent danger. Its been a full year since the worst Hurricane to hit Southeastern Texas in twenty five years came ashore. Guess its time to finish the story.

I'll try to summarize where I left off.

I spent most of the evening outside, under the overhang between the house and the garage. In retrospect I probably should have stayed inside because I find that I don’t like it much when the wind picks up and blows the trees any more.

Let me talk just a second about the experience. We spend so much time down here preparing for this kind of thing that the whole thing seems almost commonplace. In the early fall, I look forward to the first UH game, the kids start school, we pine for cooler weather and we get ready for any threats from the Gulf. I didn’t really give much thought to riding out the storm because that is what we do. Evacuation is much more dangerous as we don’t live in a storm surge (severe flooding) zone. Run from the water, hide from the wind.

Check below for the preparations that we performed before the storm. Pretty much the recommended routine but I have learned something. The best you can do is just barely good enough. Even with all the prep, we weren’t ready to be a week without power. Nor was I ready for the ferocity of the storm.

The most striking thing was the sound. The swooshing of the trees was kind of like white noise blasted at full power from theater speakers. And it went on for 12 hours straight. Amazingly, the other sounds of the storm were loud enough to break through as well. For most of the night, you could hear transformers popping, trees breaking and fences giving way.

The lightning was blinding. In the last post I mention green lightning. That was actually the transformers around the neighborhood blowing up. The purple lightning was from the storm.

I will admit to a certain morbid curiosity about experiencing the storm. This was probably one of the main reasons I stayed outside. The other was boredom and fear of the unknown. I took the graveyard shift. I wanted to be awake if something happened to the house or if tornados seemed likely. In that case I would have gotten everyone in the stairwell closet. I figured the more time the better. In any case, I’m not eager to repeat the event. At one point our 50 foot Pecan tree bent almost to the ground and then bent the other way towards the neighbor’s yard. I’m not sure I wanted to see that.

Jules and Aidan woke up at about 5:00 am when the worst of the storm was over. I crashed. By the time I got up at around 10:00 am, the storm was mostly gone. Since the power was out, we moved into our Travel Trailer that I had parked in the driveway. It had suffered no damage.

I ran extension cords and began plugging things into the generator. We came into the house occasionally but mostly, we hung out in the trailer (air conditioning). Thankfully, the first cool front of the year pushed through the area and life was less sticky than it could have been.

The things we longed for most were Gasoline and Fast food. Neither was available anywhere for at least 3 days. I keep a 15 gallon external tank and our little boat holds about fifteen gallons. I had filled both before the storm. Our generator runs through about 4 gallons every 12 hours or so. We had enough to get by. A couple of our friends came by to check on us (and bring extra gas) in the days after and we all faired pretty well.

The neighborhood was pretty wrecked and the rebuilding has really just recently wrapped up. Other towns didn’t do so well.

Most of the houses in Galveston were severely damaged. The beachhouse that we stayed at on the Bolivar Peninsula was reduced to a slab. We had been there the week before to celebrate Julie’s birthday. In fact most of the Bolivar peninsula structures were swept into Galveston Bay. I never heard a death toll from Bolivar but I had heard eyewitnesses of bodies on the ground after the storm. I haven’t been back since. Their healing process will take years and their businesses will never be the same. Jules and I have spent many important moments on that stretch of coastline. To have it simply disappear is like losing an old friend.

I’ve only been back to Galveston a couple of times. The first was last November. There were abandoned sailboats stretched across parking lots and most things were still closed. I took Aidan surfing recently and things looked much better. I’m hoping to get back a couple of times in the fall.

As I try to wrap this up, I’m not really sure what to say. Its true that we were really fortunate. I won’t say blessed because #1 I don’t believe God has anything to do with these sorts of things and #2 Why weren’t others equally blessed. You can’t have it both ways, either God is responsible for these things and cruelly fickle or he doesn’t get wrapped up in the particulars and we need to look out for ourselves as much as possible. I choose to hope for the latter.

Bottom line, Bolivar was on the coast and is now gone. We’re further inland and thus more protected from the Gulf storms. No magic here. Still, many of us consider all of southeast Texas home and I mourn for any great loss of life or property in this region.

I’m glad the tropics are quiet. We need a couple of years to rebuild but more importantly the whole region needs time to get over the gunshyness that happens after surviving any disaster. It’ll take some time before we trust the Gulf again.

Thanks to all who read this and once again I apologize for neglecting it so long. Look for the next post when we need to communicate with everyone during a possible emergency.

Extremely heavy winds, I've never seen green lightning before

I would definitely say the first part of the storm is here. I have all of the windows boarded up and I can still hear the 'train' outside. I was out a few minutes ago and the trees are really bending to the winds. I would estimate somewhere in the 40+ mph range. There was also some light rain. The air smells like the gulf of Mexico.

The kids and my mom are sleeping soundly. Jules and I are getting power naps throughout the night. The rough stuff is supposed to happen around 2:00ish. I'll do my best with pics.

I'm planning on watching the sunrise.

More updates soon!

Dark now, Winds are getting heavy

Here are some pics from the first storm bands:






Avery and Aidan playing in the wind:






Things are starting to heat up. The winds are gusting to 40 MPH and it sounds like a freight train! We still have power but I spoke to Jeff (a good friend of mine down the street) and his power was flickering earlier. They eye is not even supposed to be here until 2:00 am!

No real rain yet but the conditions to the south of us are bad. All of the coastal towns have some significant flooding.

No damage yet but the roof to our storage shed tried to fly away. Aidan and I drove in some deck screws and all is well :)

I'll keep the blog updated throughout the night. Call us if you need us :)

Winds Picking Up

Weather report: Its really windy. I would say sustained winds of 15 with gusts of 20-25 MPH. We got a little light rain earlier. Its been so dry here that Jules thought she heard the yard give a sigh of relief. Oh and its freakin hot!!! Other than that, nothing remarkable to report.

I finished putting up our plywood shutters about an hour ago. All I can say is, this better be one hell of a storm or I wasted a lot of effort! I'm definitely investing in some better hardware for the plywood shutters. It should only take about an hour to put up shutters. Took me four!

Aidan and I just did a quick bike ride around the neighborhood. I would estimate that 1/4 of the people in Jersey Village have evacuated.

My mom decided to ride out the storm with us and she arrived a little while ago. She is a reservationist at Continental and she said the phones were insane this morning. Consequently, she is asleep upstairs :)

First Signs of Ike

I was working just now to secure everything in the backyard. I think I have everything tucked away in the garage.



Its starting to cloud up a little bit. The sustained winds are still pretty low but the gusts are pretty impressive.

We went for a bike ride this morning to see what people were doing around the neighborhood:



The kids look terrified.

A lot of people have put up plywood.

This is a house on the small lake in our neighborhood.

The Coast Guard has already had to perform some high water rescues for people that stayed. The storm surge is over the seawall in Galveston. I would imagine that the whole city will be underwater. Makes me really sad. I love that town.


Julie said that the wind forecast for our neighborhood is 85 MPH. That will be the highest the winds have been here in 70 years.

I'll keep posting as long as the cable (our internet connection) holds out. I can run the modem and router off of a car battery if the power goes out. I predict that our power will be out by 8:00 this evening.

Its actually gotten a bit darker since I started writing this post. I guess the cloud cover is thickening.

I'm going out now to put up our plywood shutters. Our cell phones are on and charged if you need to get a hold of us. Also feel free to leave comments or questions (click on comments below).

Should be an interesting evening.

Quick Update

Good morning all,





Looks like they're forecasting 76 MPH winds for us this evening. We'll clear out the backyard and Julie will probably make me put up some plywood (Aidan and I built some storm shutters last year). I can hear our neighbors putting up wood now.





Its actually kind of nice out right now. We're going for a bike ride. I'll grab some pics of the preparations that people are making around the neighborhood.

For all those that might be worried, this neighborhood did really well against a direct hit by Hurricane Alicia back in '83. Ike looks a lot like Alicia. With wood over the windows, I'm not worried about safety at all. Its the power outages that I'm dreading. More throughout the day and night :)

Hide from the wind

From Jules: Go to http://www.houstonhidefromthewind.org/This web site shows the projected wind speed by zip codes; it is updated with every NHC update. It gives a little perspective on the expected damage they keep talking about on the news, especially since Houston is so large. We are in Zip Code 77040.