Hurricane IKE

Wednesday was a pretty normal day. I did all the things I would normally do and then I picked Sydney up from school, and as I was taking her to gymnastics. I saw a sign on the highway that said, "Remember to fill your tanks with gas." I had heard the storm was coming, but in my mind I thought we were out of harms way. Thursday, September 11th posed for an interesting day. Despite it being a day of remembrance, it was also a day of unknowns. School was canceled on Friday to give families time to either prepare their homes or evacuate for Hurricane Ike. When Rita came close to hitting us 2 years ago we tried driving to Dallas and it took us more than 3 hours to go maybe 6 miles, so we turned around to stick it out. We lucked out and it was just a little rain storm. This time around with Ike coming, we opted to stay home since we were still an hour and a half from where it was going to hit.

 

Jeff spent the day taking down the tramp and boarding up windows while I filled the tubs with extra water and kept bagging ice from our freezer. I bought the last bag of ice at one of the local grocery stores here. To give you an idea of what went on here before the storm, I went to Costco right when it opened and people were lined up waiting for the doors to open. Generators there were sold out within the first 30 minutes. The gas lines at Walmart, Costco and pretty much all the gas stations that are around had people lined up even down some of the streets. Workers had to police how many tanks and gas cans people were filling. I wish I had a picture to show you. Bread was gone and the grocery lines were worse than the holiday rush.

Here's Jeff boarding up windows

We ran out of clips for the wood, so we just put a slat of wood inside one of the windows.

The kids were busy playing outside with neighbors and eating plenty of popsicles.

We decided to have a pre hurricane picnic in the garage followed by another round of popsicles. 

Getting sticky

Can you see our IKE sign we made from the leftover sidewalk chalk? This picture's pretty funny zoomed in with Spencer's crossed eyes finishing off his otter pop. Good til the last drop!

The night of the storm brought in a really cool sunset and soft breeze...with almost no humidity! So we took an evening family stroll and met a few more neighbors. Times like these are kind of fun meeting new people getting ready for the worst and everyone pulling together to offer help. One of our neighbors we hadn't really had much contact with, since Rita, saw Jeff boarding up and came over to help.

Here's Sydney enjoying the evening with the beautiful sunset background!

Check out that cute guy with those cute kids! Not to mention the clouds above! The storms a comin'!

A glimpse of our stroll before Ike hit.

This is almost silly to show such a lame picture since others are dealing with life without a home, but we did get a few leaks in our bedroom. Very minor and fixable.

We lost power and felt like campers that could still take showers, but it was fun to get together with family and do a few nights of cookouts. 
Each night was something new to heat up from our freezers. We didn't want all that food going to waste so we had yummy smorgusborges instead! You can't tell in this picture, but Allie and Dan (her Dad) were cooking by candlelight! Thank goodness for working gas and good matches, also good cooks, even if one is still in her first trimester of pregnancy! Soggy pasta, raw meat, and the aroma of garlic and onions filling the house! You're a trooper, Al!
Sean & Allie got power before any of us, so they let us camp for a couple nights. It was a fun excuse to spend more time with them and stay up late hanging out chatting and watching movies. Yay for fun company and working television! The second day we didn't have power (while still at home) and it was still a little rainy, the kids were getting a little stir crazy so we piled them into the minivan and put on a movie. You can only read so many books and draw so many pictures. It was nice to have that option for for some extra cool air and tv time.

Blake and Spencer were in their own world of Transformers, light sabers, cars and Bakugans. (side note)I just learned what a Bakugan is a couple weeks ago. They're kind of like transformers, but they're shaped like a ball and when you drop them on to a magnetic card (card included with toy) they pop open. Pretty cool and would even make for a good quiet church toy, if you're a parent like me who will do almost anything to keep their little mouths quiet during talks.

Ever since Spencer's been old enough to hang with Blakey and so into boy stuff, Sydney now mainly hangs out with us adults. It's been very interesting. We have listening ears at all times. She chimes in here and there on the conversations, but sometimes I forget she's even around. She's becoming so adult-like or just trying to find where she fits in, in this stage of her little life!
The main damage done to our home was water coming in to our back door. Our main weather strip was very worn and needed to be replaced a long time ago, but we've never had problems in the past. The water kept seeping in the little cracks, but this storm lasted hours and hours...We kept putting towels down. This one is fresh, so I stepped on it a few times and water was coming up through my toes. Just like a walk on the beach!
We figured it was best to pull back the carpet and open the doors to get a little sunshine (after it finally stopped raining). They don't smell too terrible. Thank goodness for Febreeze and good sunshine. 
Our neighborhood drains were filled with debris and all of the retention ponds were spilling over, so our neighborhood began to flood.
This was my parents house all boarded up. They still don't have power and it's been 8 days! Two to Three I think I can do, but any longer than that is terrible! Luckily they have a working generator to keep their food cold and have the computer and tv working, but they still don't have a/c. This weeks been a blessing, though because it is normally super hot here in September, but the weather has been extremely nice and livable even without a/c. It is however, starting to heat up, so those electricians are working their tails off to keep people happy. 
They lost their 2 side fences, but the back one Sean put up a few years ago for my mom held up like a beaut! He's now got several jobs set up in her neighborhood repairing fences! He does do good work! I'm just glad I'm related so I can get the family discount!

Saw a few cars flooded on the sides of the road.

Power lines down from fallen trees. It was weird driving on the roads with new obstacles to dodge.

This was a friend of ours that had a tree fall on their garage.

Another friend of ours had this tree fall and crack the window. I do have to say that most of the trees in this area seem to have fallen in the best places (in between houses, in front of houses, and on garages).

Tree landed on the garage.

One of the streets we use almost daily was blocked and flooded, so we had to use an alternate route.

The guys

While the guys were working we spent the day entertaining the kids. It was so nice out we went for a walk.

We spent fun time with family. Saryn and Braden had no idea Ike even hit.

Grandma, Saryn and Braden.

Cleaning up the aftermath from Ike.

This is what the meat section in the grocery stores looks like. This was taken (today) exactly a week after the storm hit. Makes me think about how important it is to know about good food storage!
Not much in this meat section either! All these people buying meat to cook out with their propane tanks!

An empty frozen veggie, fruit, and dinner section!

Really, we've never experienced this before! We're just smiling because we were prepared as we were going to get!

Frozen juice and breakfast section...empty!

Thank goodness, Blue Bell (the greatest ice cream on the planet) had it all figured out and was all stocked up for us to grab! Homemade Vanilla, Snickerdoodle (new), Candy Jar (also new), The Great Divide, Mint Chocolate Chip, Cookies and Cream...the gang was all there for us to partake!

More of the aftermath from our not so good friend, Ike!

I don't know if I mentioned school has been out all week and they can't go back until Wednesday of next week. That's only our school. Others in the district will have to wait even longer! Church was canceled last week and tomorrow we'll only have a combined sacrament meeting with one of the other wards. Also, during all this hurricane stuff, Jeff found out that the company he works for was bought out by Bank of America. He had no way of communicating anything to any of his clients during all this until just a few days ago! Phones haven't been consistently reliable either. He's been trying to work from home because his office still has no power! He feels like he's going through 2 hurricanes! Hopefully life will slowly get back to that normal Wednesday I had that seemed so long ago. God bless the people who have suffered more than a few ceiling leaks and a measly 3 day power outage! Our prayers will be with you!