What a week! Houston was hit by hurricane Ike and it wasn't a little storm that's for sure. As you can see from the last post, we were required to evacuate.
At 36.5 weeks of pregnancy we had to leave our home - not the best of circumstances. I was pretty upset and tense through the whole thing. It's hard to think that after all the preparation the one thing you thought you could control (where the baby was going to be born and the ability to come back to your home after) was completely out of my hands. I had talked to my doctor last Monday and all she said was to get to a city with a good hospital.
So we did that - we went to stay on the west side of town with friends (Kara and Ross) in Cypress. Turns out that the storm was huge and ended up hitting them too. So we left Clear Lake Thursday night for Cypress and weathered the storm there on Friday night. I was quite the experience - 80 mph winds and a lot of rain. They lost power before dawn and sustained some damage to the house - their roof lost some shingles and leaked and their fence was partially blown over. So not too bad and everyone was safe.
By midday on Saturday the hot weather kicked in and being so preggo, I needed to get into some AC. So Kalena and Jon helped us out and found us a hotel in Austin. So we headed farther west to get some relief. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Holiday Inn they wanted an extra $100 (room was already $200) for Grommit! They are required to let animals stay with evacuees, but wanted a "deposit" that they don't refund. While we were deciding what to do - they sold our room - so that's the last time Holiday Inn gets my business - punks! So we called our good friend Jeremy Rea and he came through for us - we ended up staying with some of his friends. We had met them before so it wasn't too bad and they were so nice! We stayed with them on Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately, we were not alone out there - we hung out with Jeremy and the Lillards. Randy and Ami were staying with relatives about 2 miles away so we got to hang with friends. They just had a baby too! Reese turned one month old over the weekend.
We got a call Sunday night that our power had come back on - our neighbor across the street came back on Sunday and luckily we exchanged cel phone numbers before the storm hit. I was so excited I almost cried. We were planning on coming back Monday power or no to check out the house even though we had several friends who came back early check out the outside. You know, you want to see your own house and get inside to make sure a ceiling didn't leak through or something. Plus - there is definitely something to be said for being in your own home and being comfortable. And poor Grommit didn't know which was up with all the house hopping and long drives.
Our drive home was long - there were a lot of people going back. It was pretty eery as we approached Houston, you could see more and more houses with roof damage, tall buildings with windows blown out - but there were already crews working to fix it all up.
As we approached Clear Lake we got out the camera because it just looked crazy. There were a ton of really huge trees down and damage to buildings and houses, but all in all, not too bad (obviously not as bad as Galveston). So we were very lucky that we had minimal damage from a Category 1/2 hurricane going over our house (the eye did go over our house - as a side note, we got to see some physics at work as all of our soap dispensers leaked soap on our counters - as the eye passed over the pressure changed significantly it forced the soap up and out - cool huh?!)
So here we sit - the house looks good - no damage really. The yard was full of debris - branches, twigs, leaves. A tree fell on our back fence, but didn't knock it over. Lenny has already cleaned up most of it. Some of our neighbors have a lot more to do, but thankfully our neighborhood made it through pretty well. Next door to us they lost their entire back fence and two big trees, but nothing the house. Two blocks away trees took down the power lines so we still have a lot of neighbors without power and we'll help them the best we can.
So we are safe, the baby is still comfortable in my belly. The local hospital is open (I called to make sure) and the downtown hospitals are open as well. So all is well on the baby front and I couldn't be happier that we'll be able to have her here - in a safe environment and be able to bring her home.
So all is well. Grommit is enjoying having his yard and spot on the couch back (as soon as we got home and he was satisfied the house was properly sniffed, he plopped on the couch and promptly fell asleep.)
On the NASA front - it looks like space center won't be open until next week at the earliest. I don't know what kind of damage it sustained. There hasn't been much coverage of the local area on the news - just Galveston. I know a lot my friends closer to work and closer to the lake and bay still don't have power or water. So I am sure the center is in the same situation. Not going to venture out there though. We need to conserve gas and at this point we just don't know what condition all the roads are in. Though to be safe we took a drive to make sure we could get to the hospital today and the route was open - but we saw that clear lake did sustain a lot of damage. The majority of the traffic lights are out, most of the businesses are without power still and Nassau Bay is closed off to everyone. We did see a boat in parking lot of the Hilton (the one everyone kept seeing on the news).
Lenny also saw Air Force One go over our house today - the president landed at ellington field this morning to tour the wreckage.
So that's our story - I have posted before and after pictures at this link
IKE.
