Hurricane Ike

Well the pictures on the news are all true! It is breathtaking to see the devastation. We were blessed to have come out with a ripped tarp from the play equipment and a missing shingle or two. Many of our neighbors have trees and fences that were blown down in the 75 mph winds that we had. We were as ready as we could have been though with food storage, water, gas, propane, flashlights, and the best of all the generator. Life would have been miserable without that! The winds lasted for about 12 hours some stronger than others and when the eye of the hurricane was passing it was official; the winds were so strong and the power was out, it was 4:30 am- yeah, I was awake. The path of Ike went up almost right along I-45 which is about 10-15 minutes from our home. We were really close but luckily not on the dirty side- the strongest side. So Saturday was our hunkering down and trying to celebrate Jake's birthday without power and listening to the wind and rain. The worst part of the hurricane was over by the afternoon and then followed the thunderstorm for another 24 hours. That was when we really got some rain. It was miserable to be inside with no air circulating and all the humidity that's when the generator was wonderful- we were able to plug in a box fan and get the air moving. Church was cancelled for Sunday so we decided to head over to Grandma and Grandpa Allreds home when we were getting cabin fever at our house and the weather had cleared up a bit. We were all amazed at the trees that had fallen and all the debris that covered the streets. Every street light was out and so it took a bit longer to get there but it was great to get out of the house and visit with family. When we got home later that afternoon our power was back on and we were SO happy! We invited the rest of the family over for a BBQ and to relax and enjoy the air conditioning. It was fun and so much more enjoyable with A/C!!

Things have gone back to normal for us but a lot of the Houston is still without power and the lines for gas are ridiculous! There is very limited refrigerated and frozen food available at the grocery stores. There again our generator saved our four gallons of milk I had bought Thursday before the storm. We won't need more for about five more days. My in-laws are going on day number five with no power. They also have a generator and filled up their gas cans after staying in line for hours and were charges $4.79 a gallon- can you say price gouging? It's really sad. The news also had people selling no name generators out of the back of a big van for $1400. That's insane and so sad; they had storm relief T-shirts on. Nice business to be in- taking advantage of people who need help.