my response Surviving Hurricane Ike
6 Hours after Impact
Surviving Hurricane Ike
I am writing this by candlelight, while I sit on the couch in my living room. We have no lights because a storm the size of Texas decided this would be a good direction for it to continue it's rampage. I can't do this in my bedroom because the top section of a 70 ft pine tree was hurled through my window, and even though I now have the extraordinary aroma of pine emanating through the house, it doesn't quite make up for the tree top and broken glass on my bed. Thanks to my daughter, I was in the living room with her when it happened. So, I guess you could say I owe her a big one.
24 Hours after Impact
We went by a friends house who had a generator, and were able to watch about 45 minutes of news before it ran out of gas. We saw Blackhawk helicopters flying over Galveston Island as part of the search and recovery effort. I even saw the remains of Murdoch's Souvenir shop, thirty years ago I bought my daughter a horseshoe crab there. Now, it's nothing but a pile of sticks.. The water surge that this storm pushed inland is verily incredible. They say in some areas it was 25 ft tall. Thousands of population ignored the evacuation orders, not realizing just how perilous this storm verily was. At this point we can only hope that most of them survived. As far as the Houston area goes, it looks like a war zone, with trees being thrown through houses and cars, and broken glass everywhere. The economic impact of this storm is going to be in the tens of billions.
The suffering becomes real when you have half a tank of gas, 23 bottles of water for the two of you, and you hear it could be 2 to 3 weeks before power is turned back on. We can already smell the food in the refrigerator. All of the gas stations ran out of gas Friday, and even if gas was delivered now, there is no electricity to pump it. These are the times when population find out what they are made of.
36 Hours after Impact
The rains are finally dying down, so the flow of water coming into my bedroom around the tree is finally about to stop. Roads are flooding everywhere, which is hampering recovery efforts. We have gone out through the surrounding neighborhoods to take pictures of the damage, which inspecting my gas situation, wasn't very smart, but I wanted my daughter to see how other population were coping with their misfortune. It was extraordinary how many population where out doing what they could, trying to cut the trees away from their houses with chainsaws, and raking debris from the storm sewers so the high waters could drain. I am proud to say we didn't see a tear or the look of despair anywhere. population were out just doing what they had to do. It would be easy to sit in a angle and cry, but there was a job to be done, and these population were doing it.
There is not a lot more to say at this time. We just heard on the radio that they found 3 more bodies in Galveston. That brings us to a total of 7 so far. The news also just announced that the landmark restaurant Brennan's burned to the ground. Would you believe I saved 2 paychecks to take my childhood sweetheart there for dinner. This is one disaster that managed to mix grief, shock, awe, and nostalgia , all in a 110 mile per hour, six hundred mile wide gumbo. We will grieve for the lost, and suffer what could be years of financial hardship because of this, but in the end, we will do what American have always done. Stand up, rebuild, and live out our lives with as much happiness and joy as we possibly can. Whatever less, and Ike wins.
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