Life Before, During and After IKE

Well our life over the past 3 weeks have been nothing more than one big CRAZY journey.... As glad as we are that it is finally over, it is memories that we will have for the rest of our lives. Let me start from the beginnig.
We started watching this storm they called IKE enter the Gulf of Mexico. At this point we were not to concerned because all of the news reports were saying that it was going to make land fall somewhere around Rockport, Texas. As a couple of more days past they reported that it would then make landfall alittle more northeast, which brought it somewhat closer to Houston. On Thursday, September 11, 2008 IKE was then forcasted to make land fall just west of Galveston, and possibly even hit Galveston directly. We were told not to report to work on Friday and to get ready for a big storm.
So Thrusday after work we came home and started picking up things around the back yard. The more I began to think about what we were soon to be in for, i convienced Jeff that we really should board up the windows. So after alittle hesitation from him, off to LOWES we went. We sat in line from 8:45- 10:00 pm and bought all the plywood they would let us buy. We woke up early Friday morning and began to get busy cutting all the pieces to fit just right on each window. I was extremely proud of Jeff and it only took us about 2.5 hours. We then ran some errands around town to pick up a 2nd fan and some more candles. Came back home finished up some last minute preperations and hunkered down....
About 5:30pm (9/12/08) storm clouds began to roll in and the wind gradually started to pick up. About 7:00 the lights started to flicker off and on for the next couple of hours. At 10:00pm the wind was up pretty high and we decided to try to get some sleep before the winds got to bad and we couldnt go to sleep. Get this by 10:30 my husband was ASLEEP!! I watched TV until 12:10am when the lights went OUT. And they were out for good this time. About 3am the eye wall made it to our area and the winds were horrible. They say that they got to be about 105 miles per hour. The house was popping and creaking. The wind was howling. The dog at that point FREAKED out so we spent the next 2 hours calming him down. I think between all of that I maybe slept about 2 hours, and that is a big MAYBE . At 5am we were in the eye of the storm. Jeff FINALLY woke up and we decided to go outside to see if our house was ok up until this point. We walked outside to the most eary feeling ever. Absolute stillness. You could hear the frogs croking, you could even see the stars. No wind, No rain, No anything and a MILLION bugs everywhere. We noticed that our fence was down and our neighbor had a tree on his roof. He didnt even hear it hit. After about 45 minutes the wind began to pick back up and we headed back inside. At 6:30 the sun came up but we still couldnt get outside because the winds were still so strong. FINALLY at noon we made it out to the garage to see what IKE had left behind. Trees everywhere. Powerlines, phonelines, cablelines all down. We started cleaning up our yard once the rain stopped and then decided to head to Waco for the next few days. While we were there my parents offered us their motorhome to bring back with us. So we of course jumped on that offer. Filled it up with gas, propane, and 35 gallons of extra gas, and 20 bags of ice and headed back to Houston 3 days later. We sat up our 'new' house and lived there in our cul-desac for the next 11 days. (hillbillies i know) As hard as it was living in the RV for those days we were thankful for it and even more thankful that we still had our house that one day the lights would come back on in.. We started to see power crews make their way to our neighborhood on Tuesday Sept. 23 they worked hard everyday and finally on Saturday the 27th they turned the lights back on. ( We love you electrical men from Charleston, Pennsylvania). So we headed back to Waco to take the RV back home. Spent the night and left the next morning for Houston. We are so glad to be back in our house with our lights on.
We are VERY thankful for what we have even though we did grip about not having electricity. I think about the families in Galveston that do not even have their homes any longer for the lights to come back on in. These people are in our thoughts and prayers everyday. And hopefully they will be in yours.
** Thank you for your thought and prayers for me and Jeff. And dont worry i dont think we will stay through another one.**

This was our house after we boarded it up

Side view of the house

The morning after this was looking out of our front door.
Check out the leaning bushes to the right. Thats
NOT what they normally look like.

This is our neighbor right behind us.

Homes all over our neighborhood looked like this
Hundred's of uprooted trees...

Down powerlines at the enterance

Chase building downtown. Blown out windows.