Power At Last, Power At Last, Lord Almighty, Power At Last

The title to this post probably let's you figure out where we are now. Last Saturday, we finally got word that electrical service had been restored to our house. So, on Sunday with children, grandchildren, great-grandmother, and Ollie (our Lab) in tow, we headed back to Lake Jackson after 2-1/2 weeks of living out of suitcases. Because of all the stuff we had and concerns about Janell's mom, Tara, our daughter-in-law volunteered to drive down with us. We had three vehicles in our little convoy. Anyway, we arrived safely and were very happy to be back in our house. Tara turned around and drove back to College Station, bless her heart. She and Sean just don't know how grateful we are for their hospitality.

For us, our Ike trek is over, and it's on to other things (after just a bit more cleanup, though).

On The Mend

The area as a whole continues to go through various stages of recovery. Galveston is in terrible shape. There are lots of issues there, and it's going to be a while for their renewal. As for our city, Lake Jackson is getting cleaned up and powered up. We have limbs and debris piled on a lot of the curbs. It's sort of like having tree-lined streets, only different.

Most of the city residents still do not have power. The main reason that we are lagging behind is that the felling of so many trees took out a lot of lines. The power company triages the damage to work in areas where electricity can be restored to the most people with the least effort. Our understanding is that they are starting to descend on LJ. It is said that Monday or Tuesday will see big changes for all of us. Given all the damage in other areas of the coast, we're okay with the progress. These guys have a big job.

This past Wednesday, I drove back home to clean out the refrigerators and freezer so I could take advantage of our regular trash pickup day. I had quite a load of stuff, but at least we no longer have to decide how long something has been in the fridge. It was all bad after five days. I also got the back yard raked up and it looks much better.

In all of this, we had longed planned to get Stacy, Hutch, and Elsa to Lake Jackson during the time Alex had to be out of town. So, I flew to Richmond, VA yesterday morning, met up with all of them, and, with Hutch on my lap, flew back home with Stacy and Elsa. Alex departed for Minnesota at nearly the same time we left. It's the first time I've ever made a round trip flight and never left an airport. Anyway, we eventually made it to College Station last night. So now we have added more people to Sean's and Tara's house.

It is hardly possible to describe how much we appreciate Sean and Tara. There hospitality and attitude has been a godsend. I'm not sure we could have done all this without them. Even in the face of adding more people to their house, they've been real troopers. God bless them.

Post Hurricane Ike

It has been almost a week since I last posted anything because all we could do was watch and wait. The eye of the storm made landfall on Galveston Island just north of us. We were on the clean side and suffered very little damage. Beachfront houses had the most damage, but even then many were spared. The winds were relatively low, less than 100 MPH, we didn't have much storm surge (i.e., water pushed onshore by the wind), and very little rainfall. Galveston didn't fare as well, as did areas up the coast from us into Louisiana. Lots of coastal flooding. Houston was hit with some flooding and high winds in the area. Electrical service is out for around two million customers, including us. It's possible we won't have power for a week or two. In Lake Jackson, the water is safe to drink, but the sewer lift stations are not all working yet, so we are urged not to return. Our family is still in College Station, TX with Sean and Tara.

Sean and I went back yesterday to get my pickup and do some work. We had a bizarre break in our incoming water line due to storm debris. While I fixed this, Sean picked up the big chunks of tree limbs in our yard. Here's some pictures from our house.

This is the front yard, complete with boarded up windows, the only ones I did.

Our neighbors across the street had three large trees knocked down with no damage to their home.

This is a panorama of our back yard. If you look at our neighbor's house across the fence, you can see the tree laying on their roof. It pierced the roof, and an hour or so later, during their attempt to remove it, it made another hole when it shifted.

Finally, this is the pile of debris that Sean generated when he picked up the limbs in our yard. I'm in the picture to infer that I actually helped. I'm very grateful for his help. There's still a lot to pick up, but it's small stuff.

Our house really had no damage at all, which was pretty much the norm for the area. Lots of trees and tree limbs are down, making it look worse than it is. It will take a while to get everything cleaned up. We are very thankful.

One thing about hurricanes that seems so surreal to me is that they come ashore with the all the fury one can image, taking hours to pass through and wreaking havoc everywhere. Then, soon after, the weather can be pleasant, a glorious day, with the sun shining down on absolute devastation of a massive scale.

The Storm

After giving some thought to starting a blog, I finally decided to do so on the eve of the landfall of Hurricane Ike. Why now? Well, we did what we could around our house and left Lake Jackson to get out of the path of the coming cyclone. We moved everyone inland to Sean and Tara's house. Now there is nothing we can do but wait to see what happens. As of now, Ike will move onshore in the early morning hours of Saturday just slightly north of where we live.

I've always marveled at the timing of landfalls. These storms will begin on the coast of Africa, move ponderously across the Atlantic for days on end, chart some course through the Caribbean for several days, move across the Gulf of Mexico for two or three days, and then , seemingly invariably, hit some time during the night. It must be to add to the drama, as if screaming winds, torrential rains, and massive waves just aren't enough to terrorize we simple humans.

Anyway, we will see what happens.