As most of you probably know, there is a hurricane approaching Houston (where I live) so I thought I’d do a quick update. We have decided to weather the storm at home, 50 miles or so from the gulf coast. Our area will likely see high winds and rain from the storm which may result in some downed trees and power outages. Ike will hit the coast around midnight, probably as a category 2 storm. We have taken precautions and have provisions for a few days. If it looks as though outages will be long-term then we have made arrangements to head northward and stay with family members elsewhere.
The folks remaining on Galveston island and other areas of the shoreline are the real concern in this storm. Ike is a large storm and is already creating a surge of water that is covering some of these low-lying areas. People have already had to be rescued from rooftops and there will be homes and businesses completely obliterated by the time the hurricane makes landfall (over 10 hours from now). It is hard to believe that anyone has chosen to ride out the storm down there but many have, which will increase the death toll. Galveston and Houston have been fortunate (or unfortunate in a way) to have had many near-misses in the last several years but this has perhaps created a misplaced confidence when it comes to hurricanes. Some have assumed that because they’ve made it through past storms they will be fine this time too, but each storm is different and Ike is the real deal. Please keep these folks, and the police, coast guard and other officials that must stick around to rescue them, in your thoughts and prayers this weekend. If we lose power, obviously I may not have access to a computer for a few days but will resume the blog as soon as possible.
Thanks to those of you who have expressed concern.
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I hope you got through the hurricane okay. I’ve been reading about the damage and seeing the pictures and my heart goes out to all of you!
Thanks so much! Yes, we are fine. After the storm on Saturday we were without power, as was most of Houston. The outages will be long-term for many areas so we are temporarily staying with family in Austin. Our home sustained no damage which is more than I can say for many homes in our area. Falling trees was definitely a problem and there are many power lines down. It will take a while to get the Houston area back on its feet. We hope to return home sometime this week.