Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, Houston and several surrounding areas last night and this morning. Myself and Tianna are both fine, as are all the cats (frankly, I don't think they realized anything happened at all). We're just looking around and checking out the damage, and so far it seems pretty extensive.

The day before, we went to my townhouse and did what we could to prepare it. There are too many windows there to stay safe, so we taped them up the best we could and brought in anything that the wind could use as a missile. I locked up and left, hoping that I would come back to something in remotely the same state. We packed up Pippin and headed over to the Rice building where Tianna lives, ready to weather the storm.

The storm surge started coming ashore last night in Galveston, Port Arthur and all the other coastal areas. The seawall in Galveston (built in response to the 1900 unnamed hurricane that claimed more lives than any natural disaster in the history of the United States) is 16' tall. The storm surge was, well, more than that. Thankfully, most of the island evacuated.

Around midnight, the wind and rain started to pick up in downtown Houston. The Rice building is old, and it's seen its share of hurricanes and tropical storms, so we felt pretty secure there. Also, downtown's power lines are underground, so there was less chance of us losing power than at my place.

Within the next few hours, there was news of wind damage around downtown and fires that had started. We could see the rain and wind from some of her windows. We had been awake all day and worried, so by then we were pretty exhausted. We left the news on and tried to fall asleep. I did a great job, and other than waking up to a phone call from my dad around 5, I slept all the way to 8:30 this morning. We emerged to survey what the hurricane had done.

As you can see, it's very bad here. This is pretty much the most of where we can go currently. The roads are impassable because of glass and debris, and the bayous are all overflowing, making it very hard to get around without getting flooded out. We're okay where we are, though. The loft is undamaged and we have food, water and the essentials.

As it stands, I've heard from most people so far and it seems like we got through this safely. None of my friends so far have been hurt, which is a blessing. If I haven't heard from you yet, I still have power and internet (obviously) so call me or email me to let me know you're okay.

I'm very anxious about getting home and seeing if my townhouse is okay, but as it stands there's just no way to get over there. I can't even get out of the garage here right now. I have some of my neighbor's telephone numbers, but I haven't been able to reach them so far. Perhaps when some other people can get around they can see it for me. I really hope everything is okay.

That's about it. If you want to chat, give me a call or shoot me an email.