Hurricane Ike - Help Is On The Way For Texas!

[brain]

TampaBay's 10 News

They have photos and images of
Houston, Texas and all the surroundings.

It's hideous over there!



It tells it as it is....

[Shelley]

They are both near Houston, yet I didn't hear about Friendswood mentioned in the news. Clear Lake is where NASA and other high falooters live.

[brain]

I have a lot of my Senior High classmates who
resides in Houston / Clear Lake. And plus I have
some close friends as well a few of my classmates
who WORKS for NASA ...

No word from them, but I am not going to email
or contact them - knowing that it's going to be
useless:

1) No power or power outages
2) Telephone / Cell Towers Down
3) Cable outages

etc, etc, etc

I know ... having been through it all before; it's
just best to be patient and wait until they contact
you first. I know it's very difficult when everyone's
concerned and worried about everyone!

For as I've posted before - with the world attempting
to reach them; and they're trying (if they have any
connections OUT) - they are only overloading the
circuits and they're short-handed as is, unfortunately.

This is one of the most common problems Florida
faces frequently and often; especially when Hurricanes
strikes here a lot. Circuit overloads - and we become
helpless because everyone's hogging up the lines
when our system is already shorted out and limited
as is. I hope this makes it all clear.

I surely hope all the CWE members and Bernard and
his family are all OK!

[Meetz1064]

one of the TX people took your advice, Brain, about the spray paint......they have it on the house.......on the window and door, though.

I am sending many positive thoughts up for all of our members in TX....as well as Mr B & his family.

[BuckeyeFan]

The remnants have reached us here in the mid-west. Very little rain, but we are on the east edge of the center and have been having 60-75 mph gusts most of the day. I was outside for a little while and felt like one of those crazy weather reporters barely able to walk.

Nothing serious, but just shows how strong the storm was. Some trees down, shingle damage, and isolated power outages. Still this strong 800-900 miles away. It has also swept 90 degree temps up from the south. Most hurricane remnants that make it this far are simply rain events (which we could use, but didn't get on the east side of the storm).

Continued prayers to all those hit by the storm.

[TexasTravel]

My wife and I got back about 6 hours ago. We arrived at my mom and stepdad's house, in Sargent, first. Their house, being right under giant pecan trees, had 2 limbs, one on the south side and one on the north side, laying on their house. The limbs were each about 25 foot long with and average of about 8 inches diameter. Both were leaning at about a 60 degree angle, roof to ground wise. There was some slight damage to the shingles but that was about it as far their house is concerned. There were VERY LARGE limbs down all around the property.....40 to 50 foot, 12 inch diameter limbs fallen from the tops of those giant trees but, luckily, it was far from their house.

We were told, by friends and other family members, that nothing was really damaged as far as our house. The electricity, sewage and water was out for a day or so and the city it would be out for 2 to 4 weeks and that we were responsible for our actions were we to enter and/or stay at our house. When we arrived at my parents, they did not have electricity, sewage or water (because they have a well).

Despite what we were told, when we got home we had electricity, water and sewage.....all of which we were told that we would not have for 2 to 4 weeks. We had our functions back within one day. To give a very good example of how long the functions, at our house, were off..........our refrigerator has an automatic ice maker, as most do these days. One would assume that the second that the power went off and the frig turned off, the ice would start melting. Well, when we got home and checked the ice tray, the ice looked like it had been melting only an hour or so and was still in cube form, just a little lumpy. So, that tells how long our functions were out.

There are trees, power lines, etc. down all over the city but no "real" damage such as holes in houses, shattered windows, houses with pieced blown out, etc., etc. It will take some time cleaning up and a small amount of money for city services like the street lights but that is about it.

We thank goodness that it was not more but it turned out to be what I thought. I will try and post some pictures later.

Sorry so long.

[Bernard]

Glad you made it through TT. Looks like we got it easy being on the west side of the storm.

We just got power back. It was an unexpected surprise as a power transmission station for our area had sustained damage and they thought it might take a few more days to get it back online.

The winds started picking up around 7PM here and there wasn't a whole lot of rain. We played dominos until the power went out around 11:20PM.

I stayed up listening to a hand crank powered radio and watching out our front door (with a top of the line security strength storm door) for tornados (to gather everyone in the safe room should one come by). At least, I stayed up until I got too sleepy. I tried dozing off for a few Zzzs, but had a hard time of it as the wind gusts made hilacious noises and the house was getting pelted with debris from time to time.

Around 3AM, the eye of the storm arrived and I finally fell asleep for a little while. An hour later, the back wall of the eye arrived and it was much stronger than the front part of the storm. Around 4:30AM I was seriously doubting whether we had made the right decision to ride the storm out.

The radio station (740AM) was taking calls from people all over SE Texas all night long and it was really sad around 1:30AM when a lady called in from Galveston island. She said her husband was on Oxygen and she had just gotten out of the hospital and they had not had an opportunity to evacuate and she was terrified that they were not going to live to see the morning. There was no way anyone could help them at that point.

There was no flooding in our area, our water and sewage service was never interrupted. We escaped with just one section of our back fence and a few plants knocked over (all of which was fixable) and few broken branches on the more established trees.

Some of our neighbors lost significant portions of their roof shingles, water damage in the house, entire fences knocked down and large Oak trees felled (on houses, cars, etc.).

Some of Stacy's siblings in the Deer Park/La Porte area sustained much more damage and I'm heading over there tomorrow to help out with clean up.

There are still a *lot* of people without power in SE Texas (estimates were over a million people) and on the local radio, county and state officials are hopping mad at FEMA for dropping the ball in many cases where first responders are without ice, food and drink. Fortunately, there are many Texans who rode out the storm who are showing up with these items to share with the responders.

[brain]

But we're sending y'all MORE assistance already!



We're experienced with this stuff, so Florida's going
to really be short and hurting!

Hundreds complain of gas gouging; utilities send help to Texas

On another front, local power companies are returning the favor to Texas utilities, which helped out when Florida was hit by four hurricanes in 2004.

Progress Energy Florida sent 380 workers to Texas on Sunday, including 150 from the Tampa Bay area. TECO Power sent 70 crew members.

The workers were all heading to Beaumont, Texas, for two weeks of repairing downed power lines. The Texas utility Entergy will pay for the work.

"They left this morning at the crack of dawn in a big caravan of bucket trucks," said Progress Energy spokeswoman Cherie Jacobs. "They look like the cavalry coming down the highway."

This means MORE FOLKS are on the way!
(Notice ---> that article was 'modified' again - *laughs*)

*** NOTE: Yes, you will see that IKE IS and MENTIONED
in FLORIDA, because we DID get a SWIPE-BY by Hurricane
Ike himself - I've yet to upload some of those photos ...
Sorry! ***

---------------------------------

Glad our CWE Members have made it through this
hideous storm! Is anyone unaccountable yet?

[Georgiagirl88]

So glad you are back Bernard! Hope all is o.k. at your families homes..but I am glad you and your family is safe and sound!!
Hurricanes are a scary thing to go through for sure!

Take care!
Michelle

[Shelley]

Hurricane Ike changed course at the last minute, so all I got was a little wind and a spot of rain.

[BuckeyeFan]

From what we received yesterday with 60-75 mph gusts, we got the tiniest glimpse of those 100-110 sustained winds. We had three deaths in Ohio, it is hard to believe that more were not killed in Texas. Thank God!

Ohio (and I am sure the rest of the states in the path) had close to a million without power yesterday and this morning. Many schools closed today without power.

Everyone please be CAREFUL during the cleanup. The news was claiming that more people are killed in the cleanup phase than many of the storms.

[salright2baredneck]

A lot of people that I know are on their way to Texas to help put it back together. My husband is part of a crew on their way with those blue FEMA tarps to get people's homes tarped before they get more serious damage from the weather. I also have a few friends that are Linemen that are already there trying to get the power back on. We've been down that road many times before, so we all know the ropes. A few months away from a family member is a small price to pay if it helps just one person out.

[Bernard]

Hurricane Ike changed course at the last minute, so all I got was a little wind and a spot of rain.

We really didn't get a whole lot of rain either. Ike was mostly all wind (flooding was mostly due to storm surge).

[haird18]

So they started their own campaign collecting non parishables clothing, blankets etc. and these kids were only 4 and 7 yrs. old. the last big hurricanes that hit Louisianna we sent 3 semi's full of supplies from West Texas! We enjoy helping others since we can !
David

[speber]

[batman]

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200...l_life_of.html

[angel]

Bernard & everyone who was in Texas when it was hit by Ike Im glad you are all Ok & well ... just watching it online was scary. we are still sending you all prayers