IKE PACKED A POWERFUL PUNCH

Tree on neighbors house
Damage to the front of our house.
Front of our house

Tree blocking our garage.
Tree on our car
Car under the tree
After Alex had cut the tree of of our car.


Alex in the storm trying to save another tree that was stuck under two of the fallen trees.

Our front walk

Backyard
Tree root of the large fallen tree

Well we did survive our first hurricane. It was very scary though. After we got home from the hurricane party in the previous post the winds started picking up. We set up a kids tent in our bedroom for the girls and the port a crib for Chase. This is the room we boarded up and Alex and I took turns trying to get some sleep. Since the hurricane was going to hit us in the night it was very hard to sleep. The winds were howling and we heard loud thumps coming from outside. The girls were scared and jumped in bed with us. Chase couldn't sleep either so we all ended up in our bed. At 6:30 AM we finally lost power and we looked out front to see what was going on and we saw a 120 foot tall 2.5 feet wide pine tree leaning on another one of our trees. At 6:45 AM the tree finally fell taking out a small portion of the front of our house with it before landing on the hood of our car. This was especially bad as we crammed our Excursion in the garage the night before and now the tree was blocking us.

Our next door neighbors tree fell over their pool on to their second story and then crashing through to their first story with rain and debris just pouring into their house while they hid in a closet under the stairs. After the tree fell they went to the next door neighbors house to ride out the rest of the storm.

When the rain started to let up and we heard on the radio that the worst of the storm had passed us Alex and the neighbors took a chainsaw and got the tree out of the way of our garage. The girls were getting really bored with no electricity, no sleep and and stressed out parents. We decided that we would go try and pick up our camp trailer and bring to our house and live in that until we got our power back since in runs off of battery and propane. It was amazing to see the amount of damage there was to our city. Billboards flew off and had landed into roofs of apartments. Roofs of buildings completely gone. Fallen trees EVERYWHERE!!! The whole Houston area had no power, no gas and no groceries.

We got our trailer and brought it back and wouldn't you know it the battery was dead. We decided after spending one hot night in our house that Sunday morning we would drive to Austin to my cousins house leave the girls to play while we went to find a generator, a new battery and some other supplies. Well that didn't work out and my cousin and her husband were very gracious to let us stay. We got word that Costco was getting a shipment of generators the next morning so Alex got up at 6:30 AM and got in line to wait for a generator so we could have some power to our house and hopefully save all the food in our fridge and freezer. He did get one but we weren't sure the water was safe back at home so we decided to leave the girls with my cousin and go pick up my mom at the airport who was flying in for Emma's birthday and drop Alex off at the house to work on clean up. My mom and I packed some stuff for the kids and me and headed back to Austin which is about a 3 hour drive. We planned to stay a couple days and head back home.

After only being at my cousins a few minutes my mom slipped down the stairs and broke her ankle. She went to the ER that night to confirm and had surgery on Wednesday to fix it. My cousin Jenny gave Emma a little birthday party on Wednesday and then I loaded everyone including my mom up and drove home. Alex had called late the night before saying that the power came back on. We were without power for 4 days. We were so lucky. We originally heard it could be 4-8 weeks. There are still so many without power.

We are trying to get back to normal now. School will resume next week. Emma's birthday party planned for Saturday is back on since the place called yesterday and said their power was back on and all the little girls can still come. Alex is still working on clean up and the insurance agent just left who totaled out our car. I am working on cleaning the house, tons of laundry and all the insurance and FEMA claims.

Thank you to all who have called or emailed worried about us. We appreciate it. We especially want to thank my cousin and her husband as they helped us out so much. They made this experience like a fun vacation for the girls by playing with them, taking them to the zoo and just being there for us. This helped to distract them so they wouldn't pick up on how stressed Alex and I ( especially me) were. It is nice that we had some family here to help. So many others did not.

IKE taught us a great lesson of what really is important and that is people and not things. Here are some pictures I took of our house.