Saturday morning, 6:00 a.m. from our front porch, the street light shining through the wind, rain and trees.
At 6:20 we lost power until Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. We were very fortunate.
Tiffany and her family lost their power for 15 days.
Charlie was very apprehensive. Phil and Mary were more relaxed.
Their pool turned green overnight.
Tiffany's front yard, one tree on the house, the other laying across the neighbor's pickup.
The street was flooding so bad it looked like it would come into the house.
Both roads into her subdivision were flooded so badly by the time we headed home we became trapped.
The current was so strong we were concerned the van would be washed up against the railing. We ended up hiking out and home.
This is the golf course.
Typical of all the streets in Tiffany's subdivision.
Most trees just laid down on the houses, not this one.
These hawks looked like they were trying to dry out after coming out of a washing machine.
Their feathers were all spread out and ruffled.
Remember when Art Rascon interviewed you in the flood waters back in 1993? Yep, it flooded again
Someone lost their water bottle.
The church lost a dead pine tree.
This is what all the bike trails looked like.
Some of the trails had bigger problems.
And some were flooded.
Looking at North Shore Park from Lake Woodlands Drive bridge.
Lake Woodlands, looking south from Lake Woodlands Drive bridge. It's more like Lake Woodlands River as all the debris flowed in the current to the other end and into the creek and golf course.
Woodlands Parkway bridge, an ambulance racing to the hospital.
We know where's Waldo so where's the dragon?
The garage door on the new apartment building is not hurricane proof. The water pouring down is not rain, one of the fire extingisher spickets broke. In fact, all the porch fans on all the floors were destroyed.
The seagulls were enjoying the fishing.
Looking west across Lake Woodlands.
This is South Shore Park. Someone lost a paddle boat.
Can you see the two girls climbing the fallen tree?
Even Teacup Island was flooded.
Bad pic, driving and taking pictures at 35 mpg, attempting to show some of the damage to one of the golf courses. That's flood waters on the right.
The Home Center lost a lot of trees as well as their awning.
The trees were no small potatoes.
I should have counted how many trees came down but I don't think I saw them all.
Another angle of the awning.
Caution: Watch your head as you come in.
Falling Star Road.
Falling Star Road.
Flood marks on the car.
Missed the really great colors again but want to show you the tale end of this one.
Looking east down the canal.
The color going, going...
...gone. The clouds remind me of tornado clouds, well, sort of.
Sunday morning the "chainsaw gang" met up, formed a posse and set out to rescue folks from under trees, like the Stanley's. A hole was punched into the roof from a tree which caused water damaged all through the house.
More trees equals more debris. A lot of helping hands hurried the work.
Next was Tiffany's. One tree landed against the house. (Kent Burton on the roof)
The other tree laid north to south across Miss Mauzie's driveway and on top of her other neighbor's pickup. The owner had parked it there thinking it would be safer there. Wish I had had someone stand there for size comparison.
That's the canel in the foreground, still flooded.
Miss Mauzie's driveway, can you see the pickup?
Fortunately, it survived with very little damage. Some friends of our had a tree fall on both of their new cars and totalled them. Their van, which was paid for, survived without a scratch.
Tucker's bedroom is right below the tree.
If Tiffany had a nickel for every car that slowed down to look at this tree, she'd be a millionaire.
On the other side is a stack of brush and limbs that has already been cut off.
Justin working on the final cuts.
The stump of the first tree.
This house was fortunate, the tree missed it as well as missed the road. There were trees down everywhere.
Remember Billingsley's house when it flooded in 1994? Yep, it flooded again.
Funny how certain trees fared worse than others.
The neighbor's oak tree in our back yard. So much brush you can't see the fence it smashed.
Our pine trees are still standing but lost a few limbs when their oak tree fell.
Can you see our garage on the left behind all the brush?
On the left you can see where we keep the four canoes. Before the storm we put them down on the ground and cabled them so they wouldn't be a danger to any of our neighbors.
The oak tree missed our garage but smaller branches didn't. That's Katie's clay stacked under the blue tarp.
And that's Katie helping to rake the front yard. Notice there's no stack of branches yet, just the small pile of leaves and pine needles.
This is the office building of Newfield where Craig works on 20th floor. Due to the damage on the roof there was several inches of water on the floor. Employees were told it would be a month before the building would be fit to work in again.
One of the entrances to Newfield.
The other entrance. I had to park next door and walk back to take the rest of these pictures.
Another view of the entrance.
It seemed like every tree was down or severely damaged.
One of the trees laying neatly across one of the entrances.
These trees are laying down from north to south.
Most likely this is from the roof.
Half of the limbs of these trees broke.
Maintenance crew assessing the damage.
Compared to the building you can see how tall these trees are.
I was surprised at how few windows were broken.
A few more broken windows.
Crepe myrtles falling over and debris from the roof.
Another view of the couryard.
Some granite tiling blown off.
Fortunately a few trees seemed to survive.
Here we are, back to where we started.
Another view of the damaged roof.
In the morning, among all the debris it was nice to see something survived so ran back into the house for the camera.
By late afternoon it was open.
Morning.
Late afternoon.
This was what I was looking forward to with my little bow saw and pruning shears.
The tree missed damaging the canoes.
For all the tree, you can't see the fence very well.
Compared to other's Ike Woes, I've got a piece of cake.
First thing is to remove all the smaller branches to get to the trunk and bigger branches.
Another picture before I begin.
Another picture. Can you tell I'm dawdling....
Yeah, you can see the bird feeder, and tree trunks. That's my handy dandy bow saw in the foreground.
It's looking a little more bare there.
The piles are getting larger.
As large as a car and there's more yet to come.
Whoa, did the Lord bless me or what?
The tree cutters were working in my neighbor's yard (law requires they only go to the fence line). As I talked to one of them I found out they are storm chasers from Ohio and Oklahoma, they live in their trucks sleeping in the seats, eating food packed from home. So I asked where do you do your laundry? He didn't know. So I offered to do a load or so for them. He said he'd ask the boss.
Next thing I knew, two bosses were at my back door with these really cute grins. Luckily, we had a generator. I unplugged the refrigerator and plugged in the washer and did 6 loads for them. They in turn offered to cut up the tree trunk and large branches for me. The Lord sent his blessings in these young cutters.
Of course, I still had to carry it out myself but at least I wasn't going to be spending a month cutting it up. I looked at it as preparing me for my trip to Montana, I needed the exercise.
At last you can see the bird feeder again and the canoes.
Still work to be done, though.
Falling Star Rd.
Wedgewood Forest Dr.
Wedgewood Forest Dr.
The Woodlands is working to have FEMA help pay for cleanup. So we sit...and sit...and our grass is getting killed from yard waste.
Emma and I stayed long enough to take this picture. The mosquitoes were ferocious, I know this because they never really bother me and they were trying to suck me dry.
The street behind our house.
Cleaning the roof.
You actually need a small ladder to get from one level to another.
Tucker helped grandpa to put the canoes back on the rack.
Not much cleaning up left to be done.
At least you can now see everything again.
As long as you're up there, would you trim the branches away from the roof? Thanks.
The cypress trees held well in the hurricane.
The brown leaves are from the neighbor's oak tree that I couldn't reach, they're stuck up in our trees.
Timber!
And just one more snip...
Glamour Shot of the neighbor's new fence.
Looking west.
Looking northwest.
Looking north.
Shouldn't take too long for the color to tone down. In the meantime, I'll refrain from the urge to use it for a canvas.
Her last portrait before her demise.
Someone was saying that there is actually a breed of mosquitoes called flood plain mosquitoes that lay their eggs in the ground and only "hatch" during a flood. As horrendous as they have been "it must be true!"
28 Sep 2008 - Sunday
Galveston
These first pictures were taken through the car window as the "muckers" headed to their first home.
Lots of blue tarp everywhere.
A piece of pier poking out of the gulf.
They lost a lot of roof.
Blue's the new color for roofs in this town.
A bit of debris left.
It will take time to really tidy things up here.
Galveston's Memorial to the hundreds of hurricane victims that died in 1900. Last I heard, there are still about 400 people missing. As the evacuees head home, hopefully that number will diminish.
Not sure if we are looking at the remanents of the seawall or not.
The water looks beautiful, doesn't it?
But looking in the other direction, it's still a mess.
A lot of trash has been picked up already.
Stuff is drying out on the porch.
It'll be awhile before it's open for business again.
Two weeks since the hurricane, still no power, school has been cancelled for the remainder of the year.
Remains of a house.
The only hotel in the U.S. built on a pier.
This house floated in from somewhere, it was never meant to be here.
The yellow shirts are the Mormon Helping Hands, volunteers in disaster relief efforts.
This is just one of the crews.
No long lines here.
One teenage boy, one crowbar, one saltwater soaked house equals fun.
Two teenage boys, two crowbars and double your fun.
Don't open that refridgerator door again, these masks don't block the smells!
New parking spots for boats.
Even the mailbox looks tired, leaning against the power pole.
New campsite pavilion damaged roof. Notice how large the tree was that fell.
Another new pavilion.
Logging crew salvaging the downed wood.
Another new damaged pavilion.
Near the dining hall, looks more like a tornado sheared the trees.
Back along the road near the Deer Lake campsites.
The old medicine lodge. It used to be that you couldn't see it from the road. Not anymore.
A really damaged pavilion, campsite 19.
Campsite 17.
Definitely looks like tornado damage.
The new shower house in Cub World. Camp Strake had about $100,000 of uninsured damage.
We're going for a walk passing through the portals of piles that are now as big as trucks, that's Big Trucks.
Heard trucks on some of the nearby streets this morning, picking up the debris. Maybe tomorrow this will be gone.
Really?
Gosh, I'll miss looking at this stuff.
I wanted her to stand next to it so you could really see the size but it was still too muddy to stand there. The one root must be about 20 feet in the air or more.
We'll show you some of the trees at the little park near our house.
All different sizes fell.
Sad to see this cypress had fallen.
This is the before picture....next I'll show you the after picture.
This is the after picture. We spent the morning watching the driver pick up the yard waste on our block. It was fun to watch how it's done.
The driver has been doing this for 20 years, since he was 18. The last 8 years exclusively cleaning up after hurricanes and major storms.
He could pickup a load like this or one little branch.
This was the last load from our house.
After he finishes a spot he parks the claw inside the truck on top of the debris, pulls up the side legs, climbs down and into the truck, moves it to the next spot, climbs out and up to the top, sets the legs, picks up the claw and uses it to pick up all the vegetation.
Craig thought the driver should sell tickets to every four year old boy in town just to watch him work. Or two year old girls.
Or sell tickets to those who have truck envy.
Remember how Mozart could play the piano behind his back or upsidedown? Yeah, well, this guy was that good, too.
The rest of our street. Remember we only had wind damage, nothing compared to those in the spring floods in Iowa and up north as well as Galveston and southern Texas. Our little neighborhood was very fortunate in all of this.
Blessings abound.