Surviving Hurricane Ike

As you have heard about the devastation that hit Houston, Ike has left his mark especially in North Houston. We have been without power since last Saturday morning at 12:30 am. Here is our story of the past week.

Last Wednesday was my last day at Reliant where I had been working for the past three months as a contractor. I accepted a job with Pricewaterhouse Coopers and will be starting on September 29. I will be working with a previous mananager of mine from Protiviti. I am soo excited!

The timing of my last day was great because Allen was off as well on Thursday and we were able to prepare for the Hurricane while most people were at work or on their way out of town. We went to Sam's Club and stocked up on food and water just in case we didn't have electricity, and got gas in the car. The lines weren't that long, but people sure did buy a lot.

Friday was weird because we just waited for the storm to come. It felt like the longest day ever! We also took all our meat and grilled/cooked it so we wouldn't have to let it go to waste. Allen made lots of hamburgers and chicken before we put the grill in the garage.

That night we went to bed early because we were sure that we would wake up when the storm came through our area, and we did. Below are pictures of our closet where we slept. It was a good thing we have a big closet because we used every inch. We had a palet for both of us to sleep comfortably, a fan, food, water, hook ups for our phones, a backpack with our important documents and laptop, and flash light.

The night was forever long because of how strong the storm was. One of the most annoying sounds came from this white box that is located in our closet, which is our AT&T Uverse. Every ten seconds it would beep three times and it started at 12:30 am when our power went out (and is expected to be out until at least Thursday, September 25). Shortly after that one of the batteries in the smoke detector died and that started to beep, so needless to say it was hard to go back to sleep.

When the rain finally broke on Saturday we did check on our neighbors to see how everyone was doing. Thankfully we had no damage to our house. Our neighbor was not so lucky, a tree fell on their house and some shingles were ripped off. This is a very common sight in the Spring area. Please pray for all families affected by this devastating storm!

Here is the view looking down our street. There are a lot of tree limbs down everywhere, especially from Pine trees.



Each day you had to take your shower when it was light and when it got dark around 8:00 it was time to go to bed. You don't realize how dark it is outside when there are no street lights outside. Then Sunday morning we got another system that came through and IT POURED! The only good thing is it brought a cold front and w have been enjoying it.

On Sunday people were able to get out. We got up and stopped by our neighbors to check on everyone. Then Sean and Heather invited the neighbors to their place for chicken. This experience has really brought us all together. We are so blessed to have wonderful neighbors!

Sean grilling on his front porch

Zakary had fun chopping the tree limb

The water receeded and we were able to get out of the neighborhood, so we decided to head over to Allen's parents house Sunday afternoon since they have a generator. This is the top of the line in generators, it does everything in the house, even AC!!!!! It felt wonderful! They live in a neighborhood with beautiful established trees. Every morning we went for a walk and this was a the saddest thing we saw.

On Wednesday night a neighbor of my in-laws invited everyone to their place for a fish fry. Horace cooked up a feast!

Allen and I

Horace (the chef)

On Thursday Allen went into work, which is located in downtown. Fortunately there was no damage to his building and the streets were cleaned up. He was there half a day and didn't have to go in on Friday, we drove to College Station for the weekend. Let's get ready for football!