Melissa's first hand look at Ike

When it became clear that Ike was going to hit Galveston, Melissa called me to say she was coming home. I made it very clear that this was not an option, and that she had to stay in Austin. "But Mom, I want to see it". I made sure she understood she was not allowed to drive towards the hurricane. She pouted, but obeyed. Good girl!

Now she has come home for Rachel's birthday and is getting to see some of the damage from Ike. A lot of it had been cleaned up before she got here--but there was still a lot to see. Here are the pictures of the damage still around in Prestonwood Forest and a couple of the surrounding neighborhoods when she came:

This tree snapped in half, and fell into this house:
I really hope no one was sleeping in that room!

The owner of these trees was spared--but his neighbor's house wasn't so lucky:
And neither was his truck:

This is the house across from the Aitkens, and the car that was in the garage when the tree landed on it. Lucky car owners!
The winds were tough on signal lights. This one was twisted:

This one was cracked:

We lost a couple of big, old trees at the elementary school.

They were pulled up at the roots and just laid down and died. So sad!

My tree climber couldn't resist...

Then there were the trees that couldn't quite lay down:This one did managed to pull up the sidewalk:
There were lots of fences down:

And some huge debris pile after people cleaned up.

This one is in front of our neighbors house:

Thankfuly ours wasn't anywhere near this size.