Hurrican Ike: "Worst We Ever Had"

Ike was a big one. I had quite a bit of family down there in the big thick of it. I can't imagine going through that. They said it was the worse noise you could imagine when it was going over...then days and days and days of mess to clean up. My Grandma, Uncle Ray and Aunt Sheri live next door to each other just east of Houston. They were not under a mandatory evacuation so they boarded up the windows and rode out the storm at Uncle Ray's. Uncle Ray has a generator so they could run the a/c, and the stove is gas. After the storm hit they had no power or water for several days. Grandma had a big window busted out and they lost a big tree between the houses. But other than that, there was just debris and limbs everywhere. They said it was the worst hurricane ever. I can't even imagine! Uncle Ray helped clean up the neighborhood with his chain saw and trailer. On last Tuesday they got electricity and Thursday the phone lines were back up. And one store opened and had a huge line but they could get much needed things. My Cousin Kristina works at the lumber yard and said they were swamped! Uncle Ray threw some briskets on the grill and had everyone over for a "Ike didn't get us" party. :)

Cousin LeStella used to live on Bolivar Peninsula. They moved up to Wimberly but kept the house on Bolivar and of course were on the island when the hurricane was coming. They were evacuated and last I talked to her, she said it was safe to assume they lost everything. After seeing pictures of Bolivar from the air I agree. It was pretty much leveled. Thank god they have another house to go to...but what a mess to have to deal with.

Cousin Maura lives in Katy and Cousin Loriana in Houston. Both fared "okay" and only had no power for a couple of days, I think.

Tammy and Michael were supposed to go to the beach on Thursday before it hit and had to cancel. Thank goodness for vacation insurance so they could get their money back on the beach house. I wonder if it's still there?

And here in Plano, we got a day of sprinkling and some wind. We ran around all day getting some errands done, and only got a little wet towards the end of the day when it rained the hardest - which wasn't even that hard. We did put away the patio furniture "just in case", but it ended up being a big ol pain to move in and out of the garage since there were no high winds in our neighborhood. Better safe than sorry, eh?

Today at Kroger I bought a bag of groceries to donate to the Ike victims. Lord knows they need groceries a lot more than I do. I hope everyone is recovering as best as they can and getting back to normal. The pictures I saw online left me just shaking my head. But shoot, at least Houston is above sea level so we didn't see another Katrina situation. And I'm glad all my family was spared and are all safe.