yIKEs!

12 days, 17 hours, 23 Minutes, and 13 seconds. That's the amount of time we were without power, after Hurricane Ike plowed into Galveston. This was definitely a new experience for us all. We were very prepared we felt, though, after a week without power you really realize how much you depend on a simple thing such as electricity. I was so proud of the boys, they handled this so well. We set up our "kitchen" in the backyard, with the BBQ and camp stove to cook our meals. We ate like kings the first few nights, with the freezer thawing out most of the meat and other treats, after about 5 days we had emptied it out. We were very thankful after the storm that a nice cool front came in and kept it nice and cool during the day and into the night. That made not having A/C a little bit more bearable. But it didn't last the whole time, the heat did return and it was hot! My old boss let us borrow his generator after his power was restored, that helped keep the house a little more inhabitable. But it still was too hot at night to sleep, and we're grateful for our friends in the neighborhood that had power that let us seek shelter in their homes in the meantime.

As for the storm itself. It was one of the more terrifying nights I've had in a long time. The winds started up around 7 or 8 at night, and lasted until the early afternoon the next day. You could hear the trees getting whipped and beaten by the mighty wind outside the windows. We huddled in the laundry room for safety. The power went out around 2:00 AM, with a vibrant green flash that lit up the darkened sky as large oak trees toppled the power lines making the transformers pop. Jen and I stayed up most of night, listening to the radio as they kept filling us in on all the details of the storm. There was a lull around 4 AM, as the eye passed over. And then, it was even more wind and driving rain. We felt the back half of the storm was more intense then the front half. The winds were blowing from the West now, and as we went outside that morning you could see all the trees that had blown over laying towards the East. Most of the damage in our neighborhood happened with the latter part of the storm. Little by little, the neighborhood sprang to life, neighbors were coming out to check on each other. As we surveyed the damage we knew we were blessed, we had only lost a few shingles but hadn't had any wind or water damage. Many people around us had large hole in their roofs, and water leaking in as well.

Its now been two weeks since it came, and life is starting to get back to normal. The kids returned to school this week, as did I. Businesses are starting to re-open, gas is available as well as food. This was a very bad storm and we feel truly blessed to have made it through without any major problems. We've decided when the next one hits, we're going to probably try to evacuate, especially if it is more then a Cat 2 storm. The city had done a very good job in maintaining order during the days leading up to it making landfall. The evacuation plan they set up worked very well, and there wasn't this mass exodus like we had back in '05 with Rita. Once again, thanks for all your thoughts and prayers during this time.