I'm Back

[SavaTheAggie]

We're back online, having been forced to evacuate due to Hurricane Ike. The family is safe, as is the precious LEGO.

I've uploaded pictures to my Flickr gallery.

To keep in turn with my hurricane exploits like my hurricane Rita evacuation narrative, I'll type up our experience with Ike.

-----------------------------------
We watched Ike for quite some time, but he was tracking south of us so we thought we might dodge the bullet. However, come Tuesday Ike start tracking further north, and making a sharp northward turn, getting closer and closer to hitting us directly.

By Wednesday it was looking like Ike would be striking our area directly sometime Friday night, so we began to pack up to evacuate. On Thursday I went to work for an hour or two, with most of the day given to me as Hurricane leave, and then went home to put up the plywood over the windows. My wife had a medical problem, which was causing her to have to rest frequently so packing went slower than it usually would have. We didn't get on the road up to our family's home in Texarkana till 10pm.

Having been burned by the evacuation from Rita, we decided to avoid all major roads whenever possible, and we had packed enough food for a few days, in case of traffic snarls. However, it seemed that much of the Houston/Galveston area had been burned by the Rita evacuation, too, and most of them stayed home. The traffic was incredibly light, and though I was having a hard time fighting off falling asleep at the wheel, we got to Texarkana sometime around 4:30 am, just about the normal travel time to get there.

My wife's medical condition had gotten a lot worse, so we decided we'd need to go to the emergency room, even though neither of us was in much shape to drive the thirty minutes into town. My parents had already arrived, so we put AJ to bed and left him in their care. The lobby of the hospital had the Weather Channel on, so we decided to watch while we could. Even though Ike was more than 14 hours off shore, his presence was being well felt on Galveston, and the idiot weathermen were standing in the middle of it.

Without going into much private details, the doctor at the emergency room said we were tending to it the way we needed to do and the problem would eventually resolve itself; there wasn't anything for them to do. So we paid our $100 insurance co-pay and left for the family home. We got back around 9am and went straight to bed, not waking up till sometime in the middle of the afternoon.

Road's End doesn't have internet access outside of phone modem, and it doesn't have but four TV stations, so our insight into what Ike was doing was spotty at best, but we watched and listened to what we could. We were hearing stories about 20 foot storm surges, and other details that made us think our home was doomed.

My childhood friend Pat was hold up in his apartment with his parents (who live near where we do), and my old college roommate Paul was hunkering down in his apartment near the big Airport. We talked to them both before the storm hit, sometime before 8pm, and the wind was picking up, but nothing too serious.

We spent the night calling our houses, listening for the answering machine. We figured if the answering machine picked up, it meant we had power, and sure enough my parent's house lost power around 1am, and ours around 2am, right before we went to bed.

We woke up Saturday morning desperate for some news. The news about the state of Galveston Island dominated the TV broadcasts, but nothing of our area. We did learn that not only was Ike going to turn sharply east, but he was going to hit Texarkana, it seemed Ike had something personal against us.

I couldn't get a hold of Paul, but Pat said he was ok. He and his parents spent a sleepless night in the hallway of his apartment, where it was presumably the most sturdy. They didn't have power or water, and had started pulling water out of the complex' pool to flush toilets.

Christina and I decided to go to her favorite restaurant for lunch, leaving AJ with my parents. After lunch, around 2pm, the first band from Ike hit Texarkana, drenching the town in heavy rain for several hours. We were able to drive back without issue, but a huge piece of tree had fallen across the driveway, making it a little difficult to get to the house. My father and I positioned our trucks out away from the trees, hoping they would ride out the storm ok.

I called our house about 4pm and the answering machine had picked up! Not only had our house survived the storm, but we had power back, too. It really raised my spirits quite a bit. However, sometime around 7 or 8 the answering machine didn't pick up again.

About 6 or 8pm, we were feeling the effects of Ike. I wasn't able to contact Paul directly, but he had left a message on my cell phone's service. He had spent the night watching the water blast against the window in his apartment. It held up for about four hours, but after that the seals in the window panes began to fail, and he was forced to start bailing into his bathtub. It had gotten so bad that he eventually had to press his mattress against the window just to absorb and block the water from coming in. He was able to clean up the next morning a little bit, and was leaving town for his sister's house up in Dallas.

Sometime around 10 or 11pm, the storm was getting very close, and we lost power. We played cards, and tried to stay cool. I texted a TexLUGger out in San Antonio, asking for the numbers for League City off their website and gave him the house number (since the phone still works), which he nearly instantly called the house phone. I didn't sleep well that night because I use a CPAP device to manage my sleep apnea, but everyone else seemed to do ok.

With morning came time to survey the damage. The house and cars survived ok, but a few trees were damaged. My parents began cleaning up, while Christina and I tried to entertain AJ, who was very confused as to why the TV wasn't working. Throughout the morning I called the emergency numbers and our house, but no real details could be found. We got power back for a few minutes after lunch, lost it again for a few hours, and finally got it back sometime in the late afternoon.

I was considering driving down on Sunday to go back to our house to survey the damage, but the emergency number told us to stay away till at least Monday. But by Sunday night we had all decided to drive back Tuesday, to avoid the masses of people trying to evacuate. We spent Monday buying two weeks of food, as the reports were that we may not have power for at least that long, my parent's neighborhood saying power might not be back for three weeks.

Monday night we hooked up my father's laptop to our external hard drive (we evacuate with it instead of lugging our computers with us, just backing up what we don't want to lose), and we were finally able to connect to the internet. It took a long time to find information about our specific area, but after finally doing a google search we found two web forums with people asking about the state of our neighborhood, with a few replying that the neighborhood had not flooded, but there was wind damage.

We started driving for Houston around 11am (I had wanting to leave much earlier, but things happen), and the driving was easy for most of the trip. We saw trees down every once in a while, and some structural damage, which only increased in frequency as we drove south. We stopped for gas when we could, and as we got to Livingston, south of Lufkin, the first of the very long gas lines started.

We stopped at an HEB (grocery store) in Livingston to use their restrooms and get gas a their pumps, sometime around 4pm. It took us about forty five minutes to get us both in to use the facilities and get gas, and we found out they had only just gotten power back at noon.

The damage just got worse as we continued, and we decided to go as far as we could without stopping for gas again - we wanted to get home before dark. When we finally got to the entrance of our neighborhood, we got really nervous. The damage looked pretty intense - piles of limbs, branches and debris lined the roads. But as we pulled into our driveway, the house looked in great shape. There was a little roof damage on one side, and the fence took some damage. The inside was stuffy from not having power for several days, but there was no flood damage - we didn't even lose any fish!

We spent the next three days coping with the heat and lack of power. We were fortunate that while we didn't have power, the water was on and safe to drink, and our gas stove still worked. We cooked what food we could rescue from the freezer, and through out the rest from it and the fridge. Our neighbor was very kind and gave us some ice to keep food cold, and a Coleman lantern to give us a bit more light than what candles could do.

-----------------------------------

The damage is very spotty, some neighborhoods were totally flooded, others spared. Very few of the traffic lights are even turned on, and the rest are mostly blinking red. Power lines are down everywhere, and where it flooded a stinking layer of mud covered everything.

We had a bit of a hard time, but no where near as bad as the poor folks on the island and places east. Bolivar peninsula is barely there anymore. We'll be counting our blessings for a while.

--Tony

[Sir Dano]

Great to hear you and the family got through it safe and sound.

[Gomur]

Agreed. Glad to hear you made it through. I lived through one of those in St. Pete about seven years ago. The water made it right about to the level of our front doors. Scary.

[ELMAS]

Nice to see you back Tony.

We got power back last night as well but decided to stay in houston.
I am thingking if we're hit by a cat 4 or above I am sure as heck not staying. It was kinda scary.

Cheers!
Chris

[Danielas]

Welcome home! We are glad your safe!

[wunztwice]

Hey! It's great to be getting some news from you! We're super glad to hear you faired well, and are back. I'm real sorry all that went on down there, but it seems most have come out alright.

[architect]

Hi Tony,

I am very glad that you and your family are fine after the hurricane. Being without power for long periods of time isn't fun.

Ben

[Tower of Iron Will]

Glad to hear you and yours were/are safe. I can only hope you regain some normalcy as soon as possible.
-Tower

[Heir of Black Falcon]

Tony,

Good to hear you and yours are well. We all were worried I am sure. I began to see pictures a few days afterwards and it was not comforting really. Very pleased for you.

R

[Hob Took]

Great to hear that everyone is safe, and that all the lego is too.

-Hob Took

[Spongey]

Great to hear that you and your family are okay, Anthony. You know, it's situations like this that really make one put life in perspective; all of the little problems that we get so worked up about aren't nearly as important when we see the kinds of disasters that people in hurricane-afflicted areas have to deal with on a yearly basis.

[Dunechaser]

Wonderful to hear that you're safe and sound, with little damage to your home and property. Good news indeed!

[Jansen]

A good thing to hear you and your family are ok. And the LEGOs survived, that awesome also!

[Remyth]

Glad to hear that you are safe, as is your family.

In Christ,

[CastleLord]

Glad to hear You and your family are safe!

CastleLord.