hurrican ike ---- we are hunkered down

[Ms Bear]

Greatguns,
When he gets home please tell him how much we appreciated him and all the others.

Ms Bear

[frawin]

MS Bear my nephew has been down there for 3-4 weeks, he went down after Gustav, he is hauling heavy equipment for FEMA and also working on cleanup. He told me this week that there are crews there from Canada helping out. Our son lives in Houston, he didn't have any damage on his house in Houston, and he got power back late yesterday. There were lots of trees down in his area and trees on houses. He was able to get to  the house they have on Galveston early today, it has considerable damage.

[Diane Amberg]

I'm sorry to hear your son's Galveston place was damaged. No sea wall where it was?

[frawin]

Thanks Diane, we still have our Grandchildren here with us, our son stayed there thru the Hurricane and our Daughter-in-law went back Thursday. They have power now and their house in Houston made it thru in great shape. Their Galveston home is on pirates beach and that area got hit pretty good. There is a seawall but it didn't hold back all of the water, however it only got up 3-4 feet on the pilings, it did not get into the main part of the house. The lower part has breakaway walls and that worked great. The main damage and content loss was in the lower part. In any case I am just thankful they are all ok. The material things can always be replaced.

[giester2]

we regained power last friday...so that was a week for no power and 3 days with no water.  All of Houston is under a curfew from midnight to six am.  There are still major roads that are closed due to trees, and many stoplights that are still not working as I type this.  We did get to know our neighbors really well though.  We sort of had a barbecue block party the last night without power.


you can see some pictures at

www.myspace.com/demivi

[Diane Amberg]

It's good to hear from you again. It sounds like you all have done very well considering the loss of "normal" for awhile. I know there have been more lives lost than has generally been reported. I'm still watching the updates as they they come up on the Houston TV stations.

[giester2]

I've been watching more of the live streaming. Houston downtown has lost a lot of glass in the tall buildings, the Reliant Stadium roof had some damage and Galveston really got swackered. The old Balinese Room that was out on the pier is on the beach and just toothpicks and the causeway is full of debris, including buildings. At least 20 homes collapsed and several burned. Many were severely damaged. No power, no safe water, but the people generally seem to be in good shape. No death toll as of yet, too soon.

Galveston got pounded hard.  The pictures and video that ya'll were watching of the waves coming over the seawall...that seawall is about 16 ft tall.  Galveston will recover...it always does.  The worst of the damage was on Boliver pennisula in a small community called Crystal Beach.  THere is nothing left.  One of my employees in part of the USMC hurricane team.  His outfit was the first to hit Crystal beach after the storm (they got there via amphibious tanks).  He said that everything looked like broken matchsticks.  Their objective was to collect bodies (he was also involved in Rita and Katrina), and he said they pick up about 15.  Not as bad as it could have been.

He was mostly amazed by seeing boats on top of the Causeway and in peoples living rooms.  Now understand these houses are on stilts 10-15 ft in the air and the causeway is one of the tallest bridges down here.


I have to say that I am really proud with how the people of this area responded to the storm.  Everyone stayed friendly (no poor pitiful me) and the city and county governments responded quickly (we had trash pickup the monday after the storm..not storm debris though).  To heck with fema we helped ourselves and our neighbors.  There is still alot of clean up that needs to occur but all in all we are fine.

Ike may have been only a Cat 2 but it did more widespread damage then Alicia (cat 3) in 1983.

I was 8 years old when alicia hit and it did not scare me like this storm did.  Around 1:30am the night of the storm I stepped out on my front porch.  The wind was whipping the trees around and all of a sudden I heard this whirring whistle and the oak tree in my front yard and in my parents yard just started twisting and slamming from side to side.  I decided to go back in the house and I could barely get the storm door open.

I didn't go out again until the next day to take pictures.  All night you could here things pelting the windows. Things banging on the roof, on the side of the house.  Aluminum bending on the shed in our back yard.  I kep thinking the eye is about to come and then it is all down hill from there.   BOY were we wrong.  The back side of the storm was even worse then the front, which is highly unusual.  So for 3 - 5 hrs we took 80-100 mph winds from the east then we had 90-110 mph winds from the west for about 4 - 5 hrs. 

anyway i'm done for now...thanks to everyone who kept us in their prayers


ps these photos are from 

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=weather/hurricane&id=6390528

[Ms Bear]

giester2, I am glad to hear you are okay.  We will feel the effects for quite some time but not something I want to go through any time soon.

Ms Bear