A change in the weather

Today a small storm front came through that brought more rain and cooler air. This was both good and bad. The good was that we were able to turn off the AC and open our windows. This was kind of ironic, since we were so excited the night before about being able to run the AC and cool off the house. But free cool air is always better than the kind you have to pay for. It is also great for those who still are without power--and there are a lot in that position right now. We have loaned out our generator to Dave Peterson, one of Greg's co-workers, so he can try to save the food in his fridge and freezer. We also sent several jugs of ice over to them. Once they return the generator, we will take it to the Aitkens who are also still without power. I am so thankful we are able to loan out the generator instead of using it!

The bad part of this new storm front is that it has caused some additional damage to people in our area. A family in our ward, Dan and Jimma Shearer, had a weakened roof due to the hurricane and when this second round of storms came through they had it colapse in one of their bedrooms. Luckily it was their daughter's room who is off to college, so no one was hurt. But they now have to deal with clean up and repairs that they had thought they had been spared. How discouraging that must be!

I've talked about before the storm and what it was like as we went through it. But I wanted to include more information about Ike when it hit.

Ike was a huge storm!

Ike was a category 4 hurricane as it approached the Texas coast. This was really scary as Cat 4 hurricanes have wind speeds that can hit over 150 MPH. Luckily Ike lost some of his speed as he approached land, and was a Cat 2 storm when it made landfall at Galveston. This, however, is a little misleading because of the size of Ike. It was a huge storm that blasted a 500-mile stretch of coastline in Louisiana and Texas. It breached levees, flooded roads and led more than 1 million people to evacuate and seek shelter inland. Here are pictures of some of the damage Ike did:

Floodwaters from Hurricane Ike were reportedly as high as eight feet in some areas causing widespread damage across the coast of Texas.

Winnie, TX

Gilchrist, TX

Many shoreline communities of Galveston, Texas were wiped from the map by the winds, storm surge and the walls of debris pushed along by Ike . Even though Galveston was spared the level of disaster it suffered in 1900, the damage to the area was incredible.

Before and After shots of Crystal Beach. As you can see, it was pretty much destroyed.

And what was left standing was surrounded by rubble...

...or surrounded by noting at all
Houston's damage came from the winds...Windows were blown out of the JP Morgan Chase Towers in downtown Houston

And debris was tossed over a wide area.

We really were blessed during this storm and are praying for those who weren't as lucky as us.