Safe in Dallas

Truthfully, I feel a little guilty sitting in this air conditioned hotel room with lights, posting this blog on the internet, full after a delicious, hot breakfast, knowing my friends and family back in Houston are still powerless. As of Monday afternoon there was still no power in our neighborhood and rumors were that it would be a week until it was restored. Let's hope the rumors aren't true! Sadly, Anne and her family had to return to a powerless home so that Rex could report to work. Danny and I are enjoying the hotel, city park, and pool here while Matt attends his Paraveda training.
Here is some post storm footage. I took the video from our porch at the very end of the hurricane, after the winds had died down and it wasn't raining sideways. I'll have to post some other video later, but I didn't bring our video cord with us to Dallas.


You'll notice many of our neighbors boarded up their windows for the storm. We did not, nor did we do the useless duct taping that many people do. I guess when you have 24 hours to prepare though, you feel like you have to do something. While the storm was quite frightening during it's peak, overall it felt a lot like a bad summer storm. The major difference is that most summer rain storms in Houston last about 20-30 minutes. This one went on, and on, and on hour upon hour. It was raining 14 hours straight - not pouring the whole 14 hours, but a constant rain. Upon initial inspections from our porch, we really didn't think it had been that bad. It wasn't until we started walking around our neighborhood that we realized just how significant the damage had been. There were tons of trees down and many roads blocked just in our neighborhood. On our street there were 3 or 4 houses with trees on top of them.

The tree in Anne and Rex's front yard toppled over. Fortunately, and miraculously, it fell right between a mailbox and fire hydrant and landed just short of the across the street neighbor's garage. The only damage it left is a patch of yard for Anne and Rex to fix up.

As mentioned previously, we are grateful for the unimpressive damage Ike left at our house - just some minor water damage around the chimney which we still have to inspect more closely.

We have this hotel room and work until Wednesday. Our plan is to return home Wednesday afternoon, depending on if power has been restored and if Matt has to be at work Thursday.
Thanks for the many thoughts and prayers! We've felt them for sure!