To my friends and family
This blog post is specifically for any of my personal friends or family who are still wondering how we fared….
http://www.familychowhall.com/2008/09/15/to-my-friends-and-family/backyard-after-ike/
…Now we have lived in the Houston area for 7 years and have experienced our first hurricane. First of all — to whoever is still wondering, we are all okay and obviously, I have power, internet, water, etc. 2 days after the storm passed. Hooray!
Most folks here aren’t as lucky, from what I read on the news - most people in Houston don’t have these niceties and I can attest that not knowing how long it will be is quite torturous. For 2 days, we watched our neighborhood slowly come back to life while we sat in the heat and the dark. Four streets over, they had power Saturday evening. Two streets over and another section of the neighborhood received power on Sunday morning. A few more Sunday evening. Finally this morning our electric came back on. Trust me, 2 days in hot and humid weather feels more like 2 months. We are far too dependent upon our air conditioner. We never lost our water privileges, so that was a treat. Like I said, people in Houston are not so fortunate, so pray for good weather and calm tempers.
Since we are a bit inland, the winds around us peaked around 60 mph with 80 gusts (yes, that is a guess) and we didn’t have much rain, but I don’t know an official measurement to report to you. One neighbor had 2 1/4 inches in her rain gauge. Trees around the neighborhood are down, some having landed on houses and cars. We suffered no personal or structural damage. The winds blew for hours, kicking up around 5 pm on Friday evening and building until 3 or 4 am Saturday, then slowly dying down until about noon on Saturday. Winds coming from the north buffeted the end of our house which has no windows, so it did not seem very noisy to us, but most people will have a different story to tell about that. Our large pecan trees got a good trimming, compliments of mother nature, but we lost no branches that could not be lifted by one person and drug to the curbside for the chipper truck to come through.
http://www.familychowhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/hurricane-ike-003.jpg
Having given this report, I will say that hunkering down has its upsides and downsides. Of course, in a densely populated area such as Houston, the logistics of evacuation are extremely complicated and it’s probably impossible to leave town without facing traffic problems, gasoline troubles, and accommodations shortages. The upside is that you are out of harm’s way and don’t have to face days, possibly weeks without electricity and possibly water. Each storm is different and we will have to make these decisions as each one approaches and threatens us. Above all, we are thankful to have each other, and to have you our family and friends to lean on, and most of all, to have God with us every step of the way.
September 15th, 2008