We Survived

Hello,

 
Well, the great news is we survived big bad Ike.  We got power back at around 7:45 this evening, thanks to some wonderful men with a power crew all the way from Michigan.  The electricity was much welcomed after having been off since 3 am Saturday morning.  We were lucky enough that a cold front came through right behind the storm so it really wasn’t too hot. When Rita came through 3 years ago we were nearly in the 100’s and dying from the heat.
 
The storm itself actually wasn’t too bad, The first half was worse than the second half, I was the only one who stayed awake during the first half since it started to come in around 1 am.  I was worried about everyone’s safety so I couldn’t sleep.  It got pretty bad around 3-4 am and I started waking people up.  Mostly it was just wind.  The second half was mostly rain, it rained a solid heavy down pour for 8 hours straight without letting up at all. 
 
We were lucky and had no damage to either our house or to my moms.  Stephen and I have one tree with the top knocked out of it and the skirting around our house was blown off, that’s the extent of our damage.  Mom had lots of limbs down and whole trees, some were completely uprooted, other than that, no damage at all.  We have cleaned up most of it, all that could be cleaned up without needing a chain saw.  Those closer to the coast were not so fortunate..  It took us 5 days before we got to see the first images of the storm since we had no means of access to it.  How devastating it all is.  We were lucky, even neighbors were devastated by trees on homes. It seems like our little neighborhood got the worst of the storm compared to other areas in about a 30-45 mile radius of us.
 
We did have some flooding, it got about 30 feet from mine and Stephens house, but that was it,  Blocked access to our house for a little while but once it finally stopped raining the water went down.
 
Brooke held up just fine through it all, sleeping through most of it, she is her fathers child.  She ended up with a few bug bites but nothing major.  Stayed happy as can be and perfectly content through it all.
 
So, as I said, we just got power back, however, some areas are having problems of the transformers blowing and they are loosing power again.  I’m not sure yet if we are going to have the same problem.
 
For now I am going to go enjoy a good nights rest, the first I’ve had in over a week.
 
Good night.