Hurricane Ike – 13: The electric competition

I was raised way out in the country and our rural Indiana area was one of the last to get telephones. We kids couldn’t wait to have telephones! We didn’t mind being on party lines at all. Every day we third graders updated each other on who had gotten their phone installed. Of course, we had nothing to do with it, but there was a bit of a competition to get a phone before others. Today my son called to happily inform us that his power had just come on. Then a bit later some of our church folks called to say that they had lights out in their more rural neighborhood. While ago our automated phone call from the city came in and we were told that great progress has been made in restoring power. Well, we’re still without electric service. However, I’m an optimistic person so I’m running the generator and watching the Astros game tonight believing that we’ll catch up with everyone else tomorrow, or at least we’ll be able to buy more gas for the generator!

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 12: Neighbors


We were already well aware that we have good neighbors but this storm has really underscored that. Folks from up and down the block have come by to see if there is anything we need. The old greeting is “How are you?” The new greeting is, “Are you folks okay?” We’ve been asked that question again and again. One lady has repeatedly invited us over to eat. She made breakfast tacos one morning and another good meal on Sunday evening. Each time she comes by and says he made too much and wants us to come and eat. As I have already mentioned, we were still seeing a little wind and rain from the storm and a couple of guys showed up to cut the huge fallen tree that was blocking our street. Another neighbor borrowed my pruning saw and we borrowed his ladder. A group of us got up this morning and cleared the yard for another neighbor who evacuated for the storm. We didn’t want them to come home to such a mess.

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 11: Tired


My lawn clean up was pretty basic. A few hours of work and sweat and we were good to go. My sister’s place was a different story. It took a great deal of work to even see her front lawn. The next day we worked a several more hours to clear her back hard. There are big stumps of blown over trees yet to clear and you can’t see over the pile of debris, but we managed to get her yard in fair shape. Then, we headed for our son’s house. Jackie helped with the inside and I worked outside with him. Once again, we created an impressive pile of limbs. He’ll have a lot more to do once he works through insurance issues. This morning we went next door and worked for awhile on their yard. Frankly, I am sore and tired. Hurricane clean up is hard work for everyone.

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 10: Blessed cold front


On Sunday there was a whisper of cooler air as our area’s first legitimate cool front of the year pushed through. By late Sunday afternoon the air was drying out and one could sit outside without sweating. Someone said the timing was just right but I personally think that had it arrived on Wednesday or Thursday that I wouldn’t be writing about Hurricane Ike right now. Still, the cooler air had settled in so much that by Monday night we could close the bedroom window and blinds and sleep in relative quiet. Also, we have been able to work outside without feeling we are working in a sauna. That is very welcome.

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 9: Service of Thanksgiving


I had heard from several of our church folks, many of whom rode out the storm. Since we were all here, we decided to have a Sunday morning service. Fifteen of us gathered on Sunday morning. Since it was so hot and humid we opened the double doors to the foyer, brought in chairs, and sat in the foyer for a short service. We sang songs of praise, and then added “’Till the Storm Passes By.” The second verse was especially appropriate and some wiped tears as they sang. I then invited people to share words of praise, and asked that people avoid listing damage, etc, but just share their testimonies of praise and thanksgiving. Their response was fantastic. At that point, I asked people to share any information that others might like to know. Someone told us about a gas station that was open in nearby Santa Fe. Another gave us a more official estimate as to when electricity will be restored. I read from Isaiah 43 But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” We prayed together and closed with the Doxology. Some folks, who had plenty to do at home stayed to clean up a bit, but the majority of the work will be done another day.

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 8: What does it sound like to be without electricity?

We lost power here at 8:00 Friday evening. Many people already had generators running. Even after the wind died down on Saturday morning there was no quiet. The sound of the “rushing mighty wind” has been replaced by the groan of generators. Jackie and I love camping, so we are not strangers to the sound of generators, but what we have here are not RV generators. My next door neighbor has an old mobile welding machine sitting outside his garage (and therefore, outside one of the windows of our house). It is very loud. Across the street a worksite generator is running just about all the time. Across the back fence another construction type of generator is running. Sitting outside is not a peaceful experience! I’m not opposed to this, and I’m not complaining, but the noise is somewhat unexpected. I have a generator of my own. However it’s a very small Honda job that will run, at most two appliances at a time. Basically, it’s designed to keep the batteries on our camper charged. It’s made for RVing and therefore is campground friendly. The noise is so loud here that I can’t prove it, but I don’t think it can be heard beyond my front yard. I only run it an hour or so a day anyway. One more comment…sometime in the early morning many of the generators run out of fuel. One by one they shut down and by 5:00 or so it becomes amazingly still. Of course, having slept all night with all the racket, the silence wakes us up!

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 7: More damage



My sister, who lives just a few doors down, lost two large trees and many limbs. Once I could get out I drove a mile over to the church and found extensive damage there. Still, aside from the loss our large patio cover and many shingles, the structure looked okay. A quick drive around town revealed damage everywhere. Honestly, my gut feeling was that our neighborhood had been hit by a series of small tornadoes and that other areas wouldn’t be so bad. I was wrong. Trees are down everywhere. Signs are blown away. Our Sonic drive in was demolished. Streets are impassable and trees and power lines down everywhere. Electric polls are snapped off or leaning along every road. Returning home, we picked up what debris we had and helped around the neighborhood. Some guys we don’t even know showed up with power saws and cleared the tree that was blocking the street.

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 6: The morning after

When we woke up early Saturday morning we still had tropical force winds. However, we could now see outside. There were trees down and debris everywhere. Even though the rain was still coming down (at least not sideways now) we couldn’t resist opening the door and going outside. A quick survey of our property revealed very little damage. Our backyard neighbors had a tree down, apparently twisted off about 10 feet up. On the street side of the house a large pine tree was completely down, blocking the street and narrowly missing a car in a driveway. Limbs were down, garage doors blown in, and a tree leaned against a neighbor’s house. We checked in with everyone we could find and found there were no injuries. By the way, that remains true – no injuries in our whole area. When the winds were down low enough I started taking down plywood so we could open up the house. Here on the gulf coast we know all about humidity but what we had was off the scale. The wind helped but the feeling was oppressive. We made some coffee, sat up some lawn chairs and tried to take it all in.

Hurricane Ike – 5: During the Storm

Friday night was a noisy night. Winds steadily increased from breezy to windy to powerful to indescribable. Through most of the storm the sound of the wind reminded me of heavy surf crashing against the shore. That sound was constant. In spite of the fact that it was holding steady at 60 mph and higher, it almost had a soothing sound to it, like walking on the beach. Then, around 1:30 AM the intensity ramped up. We had actually gone to sleep, but as the eye of Hurricane Ike moved on shore the volume got so loud that we got up to see what was happening. The “loud surf” continued, but along with it was the sound of being in a subway station as the trains come rushing in through the subway tubes: a rumbling that rapidly gains intensity and then suddenly bursts over you. The “subways” came in one after another for about two hours. We were hearing the wind off of the eye wall. At that time our sustained winds were 80-90 mph and those gusts were up to 110 mph. Our community never saw the calm eye as we were in the southern eye wall the whole time. Apparently, we had some tornadoes also, however, we never heard the “freight train” we have heard about. Frankly, we went back to bed around 2:30. At that time we prayed a short prayer and drifted back to sleep.

As you can see, I can talk a lot about what we heard, but I can’t describe much else. I left myself two openings so we could look outside, but in the midst of the storm there was nothing to see. The rain was very heavy and it was being driven sideways. Had there been no wind, it would have looked like pea-soup fog. Because of that, even with a flashlight, we could only see a few feet out into the back yard. And, again, we actually went back to bed and more or less slept through the varying stages of the storm.

Lots of photos here.

Hurricane Ike – 4: Tick-tock

We’re basically waiting for whatever is coming. All the news media is correctly focused on the Galveston water surge. That’s the really big story. We may possibly see the city of Galveston and the communities surrounding it changed forever because of the storm surge. The bay and channel reaches clear into Houston and there are refineries and communities all along it. There’s a lot of water flowing into the bay with a whole lot more coming.

The big waves and the big potential of devastation IS the story right now and I have no argument with that. Still, the rest of us are waiting for 10 to 12 hours if big time wind and rain. That isn’t as photogenic as thundering surf, but that’s what is on our minds even as we marvel at the photos from Galveston and Surfside, both around 30 miles from us.

Here on the home front I went over to the church to check on things and found two of our guys cutting plywood and covering the most vulnerable doors and windows. I can’t say how much I appreciate their taking time from their own hurricane preparations to do that work. It wasn’t their “job” and no one asked them to – they just did it because of their love for the Lord and for this House of Worship. This pastor says, “God bless them!”

We’ve done the laundry and a few other things that we thought would be wise with the likelihood of being without power for awhile. My sister has room in her garage for Jackie’s vehicle so we put it there. Garage doors are notorious for failing in high wind so we put the vehicle in the garage, closed the door, and then put the vehicle in park and gently rolled it back against the door. The idea is to keep the door from moving back and forth in the wind, making it more “wall like.” That’s another of those “we’ll see how it works” deals.

The wind has picked up some, but nothing more than what we would see on a breezy day. We’re also seeing a few rain showers of the tropical variety with fine raindrops that will soak you in a few seconds. The rain peppers down for awhile and then stops for awhile only to start again. No doubt, this will be a memorable night.

One indication that our waiting is about over is that I no longer need to go to a hurricane focused web site to see a radar picture of the storm. Here’s a screen shot from our local Houston Chronicle weather page. I look a this page everyday to check on the weather forecast.

Lots of photos here.