Hurricane Ike - Galveston

I'm a little late, but here are the pics from the work party that went to Galveston back in late September.

Here we are gathered around waiting to see where they are going to send us. We had a Sacrament Meeting a little earlier. It was awesome.

This was our first house. Holy cow!! This pic was taken early in our quest to muck out the house. The piles got a little bit higher by the time we stopped for lunch. Good thing for you they haven't invented smell-o-vision!!

Sister Allen in the kitchen.

The road where the first house was located.

Lunchtime on the seawall.

Here's our second house. It was WAY easier than the first. The people who owned this house had already taken everything out. All we did was go in and pull sheetrock out. Not that that is especially easy, but at the least the smell didn't want to knock you over every time you stepped inside.

A little down time before we left.

Just before you leave the island there is a huge lot of land off to right where they bring all the trash and flooded out cars. You can't tell from the picture, but this place was massive!

Another angle of the trash lot. People mucked out their houses and large dump trucks and front end loaders would go down the road loading up all the trash. This is where the trash wound up. Mounds and mounds and mounds of what used to be people's treasured belongings.

When I got home this evening from book club I was talking to Arlene and I was telling her about the swarm of mosquitoes that came into Stacey's house as we were all leaving. I was telling her how huge they were.

We spoke of a few other things, but then a few minutes later Stephanie walks in the house moaning and groaning about the mosquitoes and how huge they are!

We laughed cuz Arlene and I were just talking about it.

Stephanie proceeds to tell us that the lady she was just babysitting for says that the large mosquitoes are called coastal mosquitoes.

Arlene pops up and says...

"Dang!, even the mosquitoes evacuated!!"

Happy First Day of Fall, Y'all

Fall is my favorite season. And yeah, it won't ever look like this here in South East Texas, but at least we know cooler weather is just around the corner and winter is on it's way (bust out the wind breakers!!).

I don't know about you, but I'm excited!

Weird, But I Like It

The worst is finally over and freakishly good weather is on its way.

I have now lived through two hurricanes and volunteered to help others during the aftermath of both Rita and Katrina and after each of these storms, the weather was horrendous. The storms pass, the sun comes out and the August/Sept heat creates unbearable conditions exacerbated by the lack of electricity and a/c.

Yes, we had some scary thunderstorms roll through the area this morning, many of us lost electricity for a second time in as many days, and many streets flooded again, but with that bad weather has come some seriously abnormal weather.

The thunderstorms this morning were caused by a cold front that's moving through.

A COLD FRONT!!

By the grace of God, we have a cold front that's blowing out the humidity in the air and bringing "cool" weather to the area.

I feel blessed to have weathered the storm without much damage to my home or car, but I know there are MANY in my town that are not as fortunate and the next few days/weeks are going to be spent without electricity or water. If there can be bright spots, it will be the opportunities we'll have to volunteer our time and talents to help our fellow friends and neighbors while they recover.

Thankfully we'll have good weather to do this.

Anyone know of any volunteer opportunities? Let me know.

The Aftermath - Part I

Arlene and I faired pretty well. I was awake until around 4:30 this morning when I finally fell into bed completely exhausted. I had my windows open and listened to the wind and rain lash against the house and through the trees.

For the 2.5 of you who are just chomping-at-the-bit to see some exciting video, here you go. :)

Make sure you're sitting down before watching; they're pretty boring and you may fall asleep while watching!

This is the backyard at about 7am Saturday.

This is the frontyard after about 8am Saturday.

Our power was restored at 1:30pm this afternoon.

Guess Its Time For Bed

Electricity went off at 11:30pm. A few minutes prior I had let Arlene's dog, Bonnie, in from the backyard. She's a quiet dog, but she came in whining and paced the living room for several minutes. It wasn't until the electricity stopped flickering and went off for good that she calmed down and went to sleep.

Did she sense what was about to happen or was it a coincidence?? Who knows.

See ya on the flip-side!

Hunkering Down

I was reading my friend Stacey's blog earlier. She was talking about the new phrases she's been learning thanks to Hurrican Ike.

"Run from water, Hide from wind."

She has coined, "The Ike 15." It's the weight gained from eating all the comfort food during this weekend. I went to the store this afternoon to get a few "essentials" to carry me over during the storm.

Bread
Soda
Oreos
Crackers

____________

The video below was taken around 6:30 this evening. Since Arlene and I are hunkering down, I thought I would try and chronicle the storm somehow. We'll see how well I do.

So Much For That

Here I thought I'd have all this extra time on my hands while sitting in my hotel room these past couple of nights. Um...yeah, right.

It's 9:16pm Wednesday evening and I'm just getting in.

Last night it was after 8 when I finally got in for the night.

On the plus side, I have learned a great deal from the meeting I've been attending these past few days and I'm actually excited to get back to work and implement the knowledge I've gained.

Granted, with Ike barrelling down on the Houston area, it could be a couple of days before that happens. ConocoPhillips put out an email this evening stating that the Houston offices would be closing at noon on Thursday with the plan to re-open on Monday. We'll see how that goes.

You all will probably think I'm certifiable, but I'm pretty excited for our impending weather. I wish we could enjoy it without all the destruction.

Hit or Miss?

It's still way to early to determine where Ike will go, but for now they've got it coming to us.

Jeff Masters, at Weather Underground, predicts a western LA landfall.

Track Forecast for Ike - third paragraph (Jeff Masters' blog)

As Ike moves approaches within 300 miles of the Louisiana coast on Friday, there will be another trough of low pressure capable of turning the storm to the north. The GFS, GFDL, HWRF, NOGAPS, and Canadian models all predict that this trough will be strong enough to turn Ike northwards into central or western Louisiana. The UKMET and ECMWF models disagree, and think high pressure will dominate enough to force Ike westwards into Texas, between Corpus Christi and the Louisiana border. These two models have been trending too far south with Ike so far, so I would lean towards a landfall in western Louisiana at this point.

Edouard from the 11th Floor

These were taken from my office windows around lunchtime today.

It's been *breezy* all day with quite a bit of, as Forrest Gump would call it, sideways rain.

Honestly, I was expecting a lot more drama. I haven't seen one bolt of lightening or heard one crash of thunder all day long! Ummmm, where did the storm part of this Tropical Storm go???

Oh well, at least we're getting some much needed rain.

Ummmm...speaking of weather!!

Tropical Storm Edouard
National Hurrican Center
Weather Underground (my favorite TS/Hurricane tracking site)
Reuters

For those of you who may not know, according to the forecast map above, Houston will sustain a direct hit. But, if you can see it on the map, anywhere that it's pink along the coast has the chance of a direct hit.

It's not forecast to be a hurricane at this time, but we all saw how quickly Dolly formed and actually became a Cat2.

Weather or Not

Maybe it's the same in other parts of the world, but it's definitely true here.

If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes!

With the high today of 100 degrees, imagine my surprise when I start to notice that it's getting dark outside. It's late afternoon, but 5:23pm isn't sunset at this time of year.

The temperature is now 85 degrees with some pretty gusty winds.

Granted, this is Houston and when this line of thunderstorms passes by, it'll be back up into the 90's before bedtime. But wait, what you can't tell from the pic above is what direction the line of thunderstorms are coming from. Oddly enough they are coming in from the NE. Looks like we might get another storm in about an hour.

I love it!!

YES! Another Cloudy Day!!

By raise of hand, how many of you are the type of person who feels happy on bright sunny days? You live for the sun and days that you can be out in it. Just to let you know, both of my hands are firmly planted on my keyboard typing up this blog entry. It's not that I dislike sunny days, I just happen to be one of those non-standard persons who gets really happy when the clouds roll in. The more clouds in the sky, the happier I become. The darker the clouds become, the faster my heart beats in anticipation of the storm brewing. I would love to go storm chasing with the folks who go hunting tornadoes. I get all giddy inside just thinking about it.

It does seem to go against all rational thought that I prefer a cloudy day to a sunny one. Sunshine is good for you. It's scientifically proven to make you happy. Vitamin D does all kinds of good things for your body. I have a dear friend who suffers from what's called SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder. Her Dr.'s treat it with light therapy. Basically she has a very bright light that she turns on for so much time and it tricks the brain into the thinking it's sunlight; thus, I guess, decreasing the depressed mood caused by SAD.

The irony of our situations is we each live in a place that would be perfect for the other. She lives in Ireland where, for a good portion of the time, it's cloudy. I live in Houston, where, most of the time, it's sunny. Granted, we do get our fair share of rain here; Houston has an annual rain fall average of somewhere around 42".

My love of cloudy days goes beyond psychological and into the physical. My eyes do not like bright sunny days. I see more clearly on cloudy days or in the half light of dusk after the sun has set below the horizon. Colors are sharper and I am able to focus on more details. But just as my eyes don't see clearly in bright light, they also don't see well in the dark. Now you're saying to yourself, DUH, no one see's well at night. But I dont' mean at night; I'm talking more along the lines of watching TV in the dark or going to the movies. Everyone wants to shut off all the lights and I do much better with at least a small light on. The bright light of the TV or movie reflects badly on my glasses and having a small amount of light behind me counteracts the glare and helps me see better.

So, on days like today, when you're wishing the clouds would blow away and the sun would hurry back, know that at least one person in Houston is a happy camper.