Ahhhh...... AC!

We finally have power again after the storm. Our Ike story is not much fun to recount, but here goes...

We stayed in the living room the night Ike arrived. We dozed off and on watching t.v. in spurts. Our power went out around 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning when the winds really picked up.

The first half of the storm seemed to last an eternity. The wind was howling and you could here debris hitting things outside. We listened to the radio in small doses to try to conserve battery juice. They eye of the storm finally arrived around 5:00 a.m. Chad went outside to inspect and didn't notice much damage. We could see that our neighbor's home had suffered in the first part of the storm.

Then came the second half. By this point we were already worn out and stressed. The second half is what seemed to do the most damage in our neighborhood. We had water coming in our back door from wind blowing rain in every nook and cranny. We were able to keep up with it with towels and mopping, luckily. The one story homes in the neighborhood seemed to make it with little damage...fences mostly. The two stories lost shingles which resulted in water damage inside their homes (ceilings caving in, etc.). We feel extremely blessed.

We were without power in our neighborhood until yesterday...7 days. Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous for most of that time. It was cool enough to sleep at night. We had several get-togethers with the neighbors which was fun. Everyone pulled together and helped each other out. We were able to get ice from an ice machine up at the high school since the power there come on a few days before ours. It was great not to have to fight the lines everywhere.

Here are some other "after" pictures of the damage we saw. It was much worse just a little further south of us.

This was common damage in our neighborhood. Luckily, our fence was easily fixed with supports and cement.

Our neighbor's camper flipped over with his truck still attached!

Power lines were all over. Many trees were uprooted. We were lucky not to have large trees in our neighborhood. Those who did ended up with trees on top of their houses. I didn't get some of the good shots because we had stolen batteries out of my camera and all of our remote controls to try to keep flash lights going. Most of these shots are a few days after the storm.

I am currently suffering from "we have electricity" guilt. Over 50% of the homes in Baytown are still without electricity. Many of the homes are not habitable due to flooding and/or damage. We feel extremely fortunate. And, although we were glad to be here to keep up with the water coming into our home, we will evacuate the next hurricane that comes our way. It is just not worth the stress...during or after the storm. Our schools are out until next Friday. The teachers go back on the 26th and the kids "tentatively" return on the 29th. Students from one of the high school that has flood damage will be spilt up between the other two high schools. Students will attend 1/2 days (Sterling High students in the a.m. and Lee High in the p.m.) It is not an ideal situation. We'll have missed more than 2 weeks of school. No word yet on how much of that will be forgiven by the state and how much we will have to make up.

Thank you to everyone who called to check on us and who were saying prayers from afar. We appreciate your concern. Stay tuned to our blog for more updates soon!