A day of service and the blessing of electricity

Today began with a call from Jane Packer. Her condo's driveway was blocked by a huge tree and she was wondering if Greg could come cut it up. He said of course--happy to get to play, I mean use, his chainsaw. All of us loaded up in the truck and we were off.

It was a pretty big tree.

Greg cut...
and cut...
and we hauled branches off of the driveway.

It was a pretty big job, but we made good time and soon their driveway was clear. Some of the residents asked Jane how much Greg was going to charge them for his services. She just laughed and said she was sure they could afford him.

After we were finished at the condo, we drove over to Huntwick to see what that neighborhood looked like. It was so much worse than ours. Trees were down all over, with some streets still blocked by big ones. We drove around to check out the Aitkens. Their house was fine, but their neighbor across the street had a big tree fall on to their garage. It didn't look good for their cars. As we were circling the neighborhood, we had a woman stop her car by us, get out and ask if we had a chain saw. Greg said yes, and she explained that she had a tree fall on the back of her house and had been bailing buckets of water all night. She then begged us to come help her. So we followed her home and went to check it out. Greg thought it looked like something he could handle, so he proceeded to cut away the branches that had gone through the roof. He left the rest of the tree for her to have a professional take care of, and then we tarped the hole in her roof to try to keep the water out. She was so grateful she was nearly in tears. She offered to pay us and we told her no. As we were leaving she tried to put money into Greg's hand. He told her that the only payment that was needed was that the next time LDS missionaries came to her house she had to invite them in and give then something to drink. He assured her she didn't have to listen to their message if she wasn't interested, but just let them cool off a bit. She agreed. It is so tempting to call the missionaries to send them over to her house. But we'll probably resist. We were just happy we were able to help her.

We spent most of the rest of the day at home, hoping the electricity would come back on. We were still cycling the generator--4 hrs on and 4 hrs off. It was a little warm, but cooler than a typical September in Houston so it was manageable. We ran some fans when the generator was going.

We also spent a lot of time playing games, and even had some company when Cory Martin and Cody Corrington came over and played Risk.

But the best part of Sunday came that evening, when our electricity came back on. We turned on the AC and cooled down the house. Hurray! It wasn't out long, but I am sure grateful it's back!

Yikes! Its Ike! -- Greg's final email

Hello Again,

"His spirit is gone but the stench remains." Ike has moved on but we are still dealing with the aftermath. This morning, Sunday, we are still without power. It did flicker on for a moment late Saturday but we could hear and see the flash of a transformer blowing. We have a generator so we are able to keep our fridge and freezer operating but no air conditioning or regular lighting. We are enjoying plenty of BBQ until we can run the stove again. Last night's flicker gives us hope that regular power is not far away.

Ike also left us plenty of moisture in the air and an approaching cold front is turning into heavy thunderstorms. We now have a flash flood warning. These storms moved past the house a little earlier without causing us any problems. I doubt that will be the case for people living downstream from us.

Yesterday it rained until mid-afternoon. Once the rain stopped we cut the branches off the fence but we still have a fair amount of cleanup needed in the yard. I also helped tarp up a damaged roof in the ward and cut some trees out of the road so we could get around. We are seeing homes in our subdivision that were damaged by falling tress and there is still a large tree leaning on a neighbors van that we will need to clear today. We will spend today continuing to clean up our yard and moving out through the neighborhood and ward helping them out. I think I'll take my generator on a road trip to help some other folks with their fridges.

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:

Yike! It's Ike part 3

Hello All,

The center of the storm has passed us. It seems we had hurricane force winds here at the house. We lost power at about 2 am and had some tree tops fall down the side of the house making a lot of noise and hitting the fence but not damaging the house as far as we can tell. We have a little rain seeping into our bedroom where the water does not drain well but it is minimal. I have been out this morning to do a quick survey and we seem to be in good shape. I helped the water by the bedroom drain a bit and we use some battery power to put a fan on it. We are still getting very high winds (tropical storm force) and steady rain with occasionally heavy rain and higher gusts of wind.

All in all we are in good shape. Lots of debris on the roads and in the yard but we don't have any major damage and I haven't seen any in the neighborhood. I'm using my UPS to send this note as power is still down. Not sure how long that will hold up to give us internet access so this may be the last update until power is restored (or I get the UPS recharged).

Yike! It's Ike part 2

Second email from Greg to our family about Ike



Hello All,

I wanted to send you an update on what is happening. The storm is still a category 2 storm and the maximum wind predictions for here at the house are still around 75-85 MPH maximum. Winds like this should not cause significant damage to our home. We have boarded up the larger windows to protect against limbs from thee trees or any debris.

The news is showing the start of the storm surge in Galveston. Galveston is starting to flood and Bolivar is completely inundated. Luckily we do not have to worry about storm surge where we are but we are feeling the early effects in the form of increasing winds and clouds. No problems yet in north west Harris County where we are.

We are in the process of cleaning the yard of anything that could be picked up by the wind and moving it to the garage. Other than these final steps we are feeling prepared and ready for the main storm to pass by us overnight/early tomorrow morning.