Ike visits

(editor note: the internet is extremely spotty so in the interest of time I am not going to edit this nor worry about grammar and this post my be posted in pieces as I am unsure how long I am going to have the internet working for.)

Ike came with a fury as I was sound asleep and left in its wake a mess and an extra week at least of summer vacation. I really don't have too exciting of a story as nothing horrible happened to me, just a loss of power which we still don't have back. At the very last minute my roommate and a couple of TFA friends and I decided to go to one of my friends condos downtown (he was out of town and willing to allow us to housesit for him). We were SO fortunate to be downtown because a. we never lost power as downtown has the only underground power lines in Houston and b. had we stayed in our apartment our cars would have been smashed by huge slabs of fence and trees which littered our parking lot not to mention the humid heat that infilterated our apartment once the air conditioner stopped running for the first time in months.

We rode out the storm in style. With school being canceled Friday, I spent the first part of the day working at the running store lifting everything off the ground and preparing the store for the hurricane. Following work, my roommate and I and a few friends loaded up on wine and board games at Target then went to the condo downtown, ordered pizza, watched many episodes of the television show House and had a good time just hanging out, waiting for Ike. Periodically we'd step outside to see how the weather had changed while watching the news to see that hours before Ike even hit land, areas of Texas were already flooding and the sea walls were already being breached, we knew at that point, that this was going to be real. We watched as the wind picked up. Everyone in the condo complex was on the top deck of the 12 story complex hanging out in the wind and drinking "hurricane" punch. It was a party.

I went to bed around midnight not willing to stay awake until 3:00 am when the storm was supposed to visit downtown. I woke up once to go to the restroom and looked outside to see horizontal rain and hear the wind rattling the building, but then fell back asleep soundly. We all slept very well that night in the middle of the condo complex that was built in the early 1900's and made entirely of brick and stucco. (It was this very building that JFK spent his last night before his trip to Dallas where he was asassinnated the next day). We woke up at 8:00 not really thinking much had happened. Looking through the one small window in the condo did not reveal the disaster that stepping outside revealed. Quickly, we ran outside to see what had happened. The shock of seeing the Chase tower, the tallest building in the South and the 8th tallest in the world, made it real. The building had lost every single window from the 30th floor down and with the loss of windows came an incredible sight of piles of glass, office papers, office furniture and mini blinds. Everywhere! We couldn't walk outside much at all due to the ungodly amount of glass in the streets, on cars, and sidewalks. Then the SWAT teams came through downtown and numerous police cars and the city wide intercom system yelling "Stay inside" "off the streets!" We went back inside and continued the House marathon as we never lost power (one of only a couple of hundred residences in the entire city that did not lose power so we're told).

Later in the afternoon we ventured outside to the ONLY restaurant and bar open and watched college football and ate hot food and drank beer thinking we were mighty luck to be where we were around other very thankful people as well. Then I was interviewed by Canadian television and we stayed inside for the next day or so. The effects of Ike struck even harder as I drove to my apartment bolting down power lines, trees, lamp posts, and see crumbles of buildings that did not fair very well. We discovered that we did not have power, so we emptied our refrigerator and freezer and bunkered down at another friend's apartment that had power. The House marathon continued. We took our first showers and were one of very few people able to go on a treadmill and get a workout in.

The city is bouncing back up, albeit slowly. There is still very few people with power, although we just got it back but we're in the medical center. I donated not one but two units of blood and might be going to Louisianna to help out with whatever is needed. There are some Houstonians there that sought refuge from Ike as well as some people from LA that felt the enormous empact of the storm. I am waiting for confirmation on what the need is. It's interesting watching how poeple react to no stop lights and having to revert back to the olden days of traffic control of patience and fairness. Seeing people at the grocery store frantically diving for what little ice or water is left. Yesterday Target was out of all beer, water and produce as well as all perishables. Stores are slowly opening, today, I went to my first Starbucks in a week. Things are open around us but again we're in a bubble that had its electricity come back on first. Gas stations still have mile (not exagarrating) long lines and are being run by the police. It's quite the sight.

I am so thankful for everything I have. It's crazy seeing CNN and all the catastrphic things that are happening with the crash of Lehman Brothers, hurricanes, floods in Chicago, and Palin on a presidential ticket, what is going on?!

I am thankful to all of you the reached out and expressed concern. I love you all.