Share your Hurricane Ike experiences!

[Var Greyshadow]

Well, I guess the thought of calling was enough.  I'd planned to this morning.  However, around 9:30 Lawrence called to say we had power!!!

Laundry and grocery shopping night!  HOT showers!!

[*Teach*]

Fantastic news!
Being without for a few days is kinda novel, more than that is a pain
After Rita I was without for just over 3 weeks and was beginning to think I would go insane lol

*at least I had my rum*

[Macintyre]

we hung out at the pool and drank hurricanes all weekend.

[Yrose]

Yeah the novelty of kinda camping is gone. I want my friggin lights, tv, internet, frig, dw, ALL OF IT back. Everyone in the house is stressed, short fused and irritable. I need some major Loki this weekend.

[tigerlilly]

Hooray!  We got power back this morning.  I was getting ready to take my kettle of water out to the camp stove to boil it for coffee, when I noticed that the clock on the oven, which had read 3:04am for the last two weeks, was reading 3:06.

We were doing fine without lights, but I sure missed my AC.  Gets mighty toasty in Houston.  My son will be disappointed when I put him to bed tonight without his glowstick.

A special "thank-you" to DS (and Aiacha, even thought she wasn't home) who let me come over to wash clothes, including a stinky bucket o' cotton diapers.  Mwaaaaaaaa!

My question is this:  Do I *have* to go on the big family camping trip this fall?  The novelty's worn off, really...

[KiltedPrivateer]

We are very happy to hear that everyone has survived and that everyone seems to be back on the grid now.  We were without power until Tuesday night, Sept 16.  We were well prepared with ice, propane, water, charcoal and food.  I will be looking into a residential standby generator though.  We got lucky this year that the cold front came in right after Ike.  Next time we may not be so lucky. 

Our only damage was to the tree in the backyard.  Three big limbs were broke off.  Fortunately, they fell straight down and did not come through the roof or the living room window.  We had a friend of ours from Clear Lake stay with us.  She didn't end up getting her power back until that Friday.

The thought of starting a drinking game on the phrase "Hunker Down" was brought up, but we quickly discovered that we would all be plastered within the first ten minutes of turning the radio on (o:  I also learned that Appleton Rum from Jamaica is Freakin Awesome!

The Privateer

[Bonny Pearl]

Hooray!  We got power back this morning.  I was getting ready to take my kettle of water out to the camp stove to boil it for coffee, when I noticed that the clock on the oven, which had read 3:04am for the last two weeks, was reading 3:06.

We were doing fine without lights, but I sure missed my AC.  Gets mighty toasty in Houston.  My son will be disappointed when I put him to bed tonight without his glowstick.

A special "thank-you" to DS (and Aiacha, even thought she wasn't home) who let me come over to wash clothes, including a stinky bucket o' cotton diapers.  Mwaaaaaaaa!

My question is this:  Do I *have* to go on the big family camping trip this fall?  The novelty's worn off, really...

I know what you mean about the glow sticks, lol!  And just when all the really cool Halloween colored glow sticks are arriving in the stores 

I think I will have to put glowsticks on my hurricane readiness check list, just below 'bake chocolate cake' 

[savannahrobinson]

A week after the storm.

Where we are (south and west of the eye) was NOT that hard hit. But the damage will take months to repair. Most of the really dangerous stuff is just about done. Got power exactly two weeks after the evacuation. The rest will wait for the insurance adjusters to come survey it.

Best storm story – a friend of a friend has a house on Galveston Island. He sent his kids and wife inland, but decided to stay because the storm's track was not all that certain and he was concerned about looters. So he's on the phone to his wife, calmly describing how he has moved to the second floor because water is hip deep on the ground floor of their home, when he interrupts and says "Gotta go, the house is on fire". He swims away from his burning house in the middle of the hurricane. Took him 24 hours to find a TV crew that would loan him a cellphone so he could call his wife and tell her that he lived.

Best story about stupid - the Danbury Volunteer Fire Department has a big generator, and most of them stayed through the storm – so they were all ready to render assistance. But they forgot to put oil in the generator. It ran for 257 hours, and then exploded. Now they are running on a little Honda.

Best story about bad planning – the Danbury water system has a main well, without any backup power, and an emergency well, with a generator. But the emergency well was not plumbed into the City water system. So the entire City has been running for a week on a ethnically-engineered system that involves three inch fire hoses connecting the well to the nearest fire hydrant.

Best story about industry – my friend Butch, who has hydraulics, was been running around town with his BEEG tractors, pulling downed trees off the power lines, so the power crews can make repairs. The City thought that was a good idea and hired him to clean the piles of trees and trash that were accumulating along the streets.

Best little old ladies – we have been a part of two little old lady "rescues". They hate to be rescued – independence is important to them. When we found out Bernice was out of oxygen and needed power to breathe – she was trying to call a list of OTHER elderly people she was worried about. When Annie finally called and asked if we could get some water to her – she was worried about her cats (she's the local cat lady).

Funniest personal moment – when Bernice got power and we had an extra generator, we took it to my exH, who is still my good friend. He had been without power for several days. I forgot it was his birthday. So he and Susie Swivelhips, current girlfriend, were on their way out to dinner. He lingered to learn how to operate the generator. When he got power back a couple of days later, we went over to transfer his house back to the grid. Susie Swivelhips said "You guys are great" in the way that doesn't make it a compliment. I told her we do useful things! (As though I thought it WAS a compliment).

Some great, but not personal moments – The city park was hit hard. Giant pecan trees crumpled like paper, trees 35 to 50 feet tall, 50 or more years old, reduced to heaps. About day two someone decided that the park was a priority, so the kids would have somewhere to go. All day long pickups would arrive. Guys would lower their tail gate and fiddle with their chain saws, and then just join in. No organized effort, just people driving by who decided to help. The park was cleared within a day – all volunteer. 

Ickiest moment – apparently a tank full of crude or something very close to it was overrun with the surge waters, and vomited its contents. There are areas of the bayou that are deep in black, sticky, stinky crude. TNRCC (generally known as "train wreck", but actually the Texas Natural Resources Commission) has vacuum pumps trying to get it up. But its up in the weeds on the water line. So getting it off the water, where it can be vacuumed, is the smallest part of the mess.

Personal losses – minimal. We lost the roof to the barn. I'm ready to believe the Navajo legend that the wind is a trickster. The wind picked up the roof of the barn, pulling four inch nails without bending them, crumpled it in a ball like aluminum foil around an onion on the grill, and dropped it on the propane tank. But it also moved a bean can from the top of a nearby post to the bottom of the post, delicately.

We are very lucky, and appreciative.

[MollyGrue]

Best storm story – a friend of a friend has a house on Galveston Island. He sent his kids and wife inland, but decided to stay because the storm's track was not all that certain and he was concerned about looters. So he's on the phone to his wife, calmly describing how he has moved to the second floor because water is hip deep on the ground floor of their home, when he interrupts and says "Gotta go, the house is on fire". He swims away from his burning house in the middle of the hurricane. Took him 24 hours to find a TV crew that would loan him a cellphone so he could call his wife and tell her that he lived.

I'm pretty sure I heard about that guy on the news. There was a story about this amazing former naval officer who had to do the exact same thing. They said he held on to a light post until it broke, and then he basically had to swim out the rest of the storm, holding on to a piece of drift wood. Its gotta be the same person.

Uhm, there really isn't anything special about my personal experiences. The night of the storm was little rough to sleep through, especially since we lost power really early in the evening, so the only light-comfort was my dinky flashlight. I kept calm music on for my younger sister on her battery-op boombox (and to be honest, it helped me a lot, too). We didn't suffer any damage (save for a few limbs, an acute-angled fence, and some melted ice cream).

The following week was actually really relaxing. My college was closed, and we spent a lot of time with family and friends that had power. We also cooked outside (which was really cool) and slept downstairs with the windows open (the stars were very distinct those first few days), which was pleasant until more people got generators to run all night. We were kickin' it old school without one and just waited until Wednesday to get our power back.

So minus the inconvenience of closed stores, no internet, and those stupid curfews, it was an alright experience.   

[dameoftherealm]

Due to living in an area told to leave I spent the night before finding somewhere to go.
Then I packed one thing I took was my swords and my ticket the dress I was having made got
put on hold. I got a call Tuesday after the storm to report to work the next day around 8:45 AM got up and drove home
4 AM. To no lights and no way to have any kind of lamp but a lantern. I worked the first two days guiding people to chain saws and
generators in the dark later to other items they lost. When we got on generator at work we had no AC until Friday when they restored the
power. How ever where I work we had what people need. We still have close to 300 generators that did not get sold after truck loads arrived.
After we got power I ordered a gown on-line I hope it gets here. Tonight I called around making sure where I booked our hotel. Took them awhile
but they found it made them give me proof. Due to the fact some hotel still have Ike victims in them.
Now hope the gown gets here tomorrow

[LadyShadow]

Well, since we have 6 lil kids and live 7 streets from the water.  We played it safe and left town.  We went up to Mo-Ranch in Hunt, Texas and played and had fun from Thursday until Monday.  During the after Ike hours...  We were getting phone calls from family who had evacuated to Cypress letting us know they were ok.  Saturday night/ Sunday morning family started coming back in and giving us reports of how they made out through the storm.  We had asked several people to go check on our home, but Kemah bridge was covered with debris and the roads else where leading in were closed according to them.  My Dad made it to his house Monday morning and found out that he took 4 1/2 feet of water in his house.  To add to it he just got finished remodeling his entire downstairs (new furniture, sheet rock, carpet, paint, etc.)  My sisters 2 vehicles, my Mom's new truck, my Dad's motorcycle, and their golf cart all were ruined thanks to the water.  It wasn't until later Monday that anyone was able to get out to our home and see if we still had a come.  Luckily we only took minor damage.  A broken window, storm door torn off, and a small section of structural damage from a tree limb.  Most of our damage was the trees around our house.  We were unable to get into our house for 2 days because of all the trees that fell and needed to be cleared just to reach the door.  But while the power was out we stayed with my in-laws, cuse they had a generator and running water.  Finally Friday or Saturday, when Hubby's extremely small paycheck (thanks Ike) came in we bought a generator and came home.  After we assembled the generator and hooked it up we had it running for about an hour - hour and half when hubby heard the neighbors a/c unit kick on.  So we turned off the generator and low and behold we had power.  And in all of this a friend of ours that lives in my parents neighborhood, we found out that his brick house was moved 2 inches off the slab due to the flood.  We came out lucky this time.  And we are really thankful that we decided to evacuate and play it safe.  Seeing the fact that a couple of streets closer to the water took more damage and the roads are damaged extremely. 

[LadyElizabeth]

I left 1 week before Ike for Dublin Ireland on vacation.  The day before Ike, my mom and sis left to join me in London.  We didn't return until a week and 2 days after the actual hurricane.  So during the whole thing we were in London and Paris trying to get on the web and watch the news as much as possible to find out the details.  We were also able to text with friends and family members the day of the storm until it actually passed and then we didn't get an update for 3 days!  Those were difficult, but we figured we should have a good time and not worry since we had no control.

Apparently we were without power for a week, though we had power by the time we got back.  Our fence was down and we had shingles missing which had to be patched, but all else was fine.  I totally credit it to God!!