Ike Arrives!

Friday night was an interesting one for us. We stayed up watching news reports of what was going on it Galveston. Quite frankly there is only so much of those videos you can watch, so we eventually tired of it and headed to bed.

We lost power around 2 am. The wind was howling outside. I got out of bed and tried to look outside and see what was going on. But it was so dark it you couldn't really see anything out the windows. Stuck my head outside, but not for long as it was kind of a scary thing to do. It was raining and the trees were really swaying. Back to bed for a little more sleep. Then just after three we heard a loud crack and what sounded like a tree hitting the house. That got us out of bed. I went upstairs and made sure the girls were OK and that there was no damage to the bedrooms. Erin had heard it too and was up. Rachel, whose room is on the other side of the house, was sound asleep (and would stay that way the entire night). Everything in the house looked good. We didn't dare go outside to see what had happened since it was pitch black and who knew what was flying around out there. The wind was so strong and noisy, and I must admit it was quite an unnerving thing to sit inside and listen to the storm. So much so that Erin and I couldn't go back to bed. So we listened to the radio for a little bit, and then ended up playing games. That sounds kind of strange, but it helped keep our mind off Ike as he blew around us. It was a very scary night. In fact, it was so scary that I have decided if they ever predict a bigger storm than Ike is going to hit us, I want to evacuate. I really didn't like the helpless feeling of riding it out. I can't even imagine what it was like for the people who didn't evacuate from the coast.

This is a great picture of how I blinded Erin with my flash while trying to capture her attempts to see what was going on outside.

We eventually went to bed and managed to get little more sleep. When I got out of bed, and walked past the window in our bedroom I realized the carpet was wet in front of the middle window. Nothing looked damaged, but water had definitely gotten in. It was still raining, but we did feel safe enough to briefly step outside and check things out. Here is what we saw the first thing that morning:

The street didn't look too bad. We had limbs down all over the yard, but they were small ones. It was still raining pretty steady, so I didn't check things out too much. But Greg put on his rain gear and headed outside to check it out the window problem as well as the side where we heard the tree go down. The wind was still blowing pretty hard, but at least it was light and he could see what was going on. The yard had He discovered that the crash we had heard the night before was a couple of large branches breaking out of our tree and landing on the gate of our fence. There was no damage other than three broken pickets. The branches had simply come down right along the side of our house. What a blessing. Greg decided the water came from our french drain not draining properly, so he moved some of the stones lining our flower bed and dug out the drain a bit. Then he came in, and we waited for things to calm down a bit more.

We made it over to the house with the damaged roof. It had several spots where all the shingles had been pulled off the room, and Brother Do had several areas inside his house where water was coming through the ceiling. We offered him buckets, which he didn't need, and Greg told him he would be back with help once the storm had passed to help tarp up the roof. Greg had no desire to get on top of a roof with a tarp while the wind was still blowing--and I was glad! We then popped into the Greenwood's and checked on them. Other than no electricity and spotty phones, they were doing great, which was very good to know! We then drove around to check on Greg's hometeaching families who that were in the same area. All of them got through with little to no damage to their homes, and most had access to generators. After this exploratory trip, we were feeling even more blessed!

After we got back from helping Brother Do, we decided it was time to fire up the generator. Since we had no idea how long we'd be without power, we planned to cycle between a couple of hours on and a couple of hours off. We ran extension cords to the freezer, fridge, some lights and a fan to help dry out the carpet. We also let the Phillips, our next door neighbors, hook up some cords and run some of their things. They ended up giving us a small TV with rabbit ear antennas, which was wonderful because it allowed us to watch coverage of the damage from Ike--and it was amazing. So much damage around the coast. Power out all over.

Later that afternoon, the rains and wind were mostly gone and Greg spent time going around with the Bishopric (Bishop Chuck Martin and Don Greenwood) to see who needed in the ward needed help. They also made it back to Bro. Do's and tarped up his roof.

At our house it looked like this:






Even Dakota wanted to see what was it was like outside after the storm. We wouldn't let her out because of the wet and the mess.

Greg broke out his chainsaw that afternoon at our house to take care of the branch on our fence. This is the top of the tree that we lost:

And this is where it landed: