All posts tagged Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike Lingo

I know everyone is probably sick and tired of hearing about Hurricane Ike, I know I am. But I could not resist writing this post, hopefully it will be the last one for Hurricane Ike!

Over the past 2 weeks we Texans have learned some new lingo thanks to Hurricane Ike:

  • Hunker Down – To Shelter In Place. To get ready for the upcoming storm.
  • POD – Point Of Distribution. This is where FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) hands out ice, MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and water.
  • ICE – In Case of Emergency. It is a good idea to put in the word ICE in your cell phone with the phone number of somebody you think would  actually help you in an emergency.
  • Generator Fatigue – This is when you are tired of hearing running generators all night long.
  • Generator Envy – This is when you are envious of your neighbors generator.
  • Generator Snob – This is the neighbor who has a generator but will not let other people use it. * I was not a Generator Snob, I shared my generator with the neighbors I liked!

I have also learned a lot from Hurricane Ike:

2 Comments
by Heather on September 23, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
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Posted by Heather on September 23, 2008

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/hurricane-ike-lingo/

In The Eyes Of A Child

Last Friday, September 12th, before the hurricane hit we decided to go out to eat at a local restaurant before having to be stuck in the house for who knows how long. We were sitting at the table talking about how the people on the west end of Galveston had a mandatory evacuation. My 9 year old daughter was sitting at the table drawing on the back of a menu just listening to us.

This is what she drew:

The blue is not sky but it is water. This picture has been on my fridge since we got home that night.

3 Comments
by Heather on September 18, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
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Posted by Heather on September 18, 2008

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/in-the-eyes-of-a-child/

Question Of The Week

Question of the Week: Should people be dependant on the government after a natural disaster? (I hope I worded that right!)

I live south of Houston and we were in the direct path of Ike. I am very fortunate not to have lost anything and we are pretty much back to normal in my neighborhood. They are not back to normal in the subdivision right in front of us.

I keep hearing a lot of people saying that the government is not working fast enough. I watched the weather and figured out for myself that we were not looking very good the Monday before it hit us. I went to the store and stocked up on food that was non-perishable. Sorry I did not stock my freezer or my fridge. I bought enough water to last us for a week. I filled our tubs up with water before the storm. We filled up our cars with gas. Knowing that we live in a hurricane area we bought a generator years ago when we had some extra money. Am I wrong in thinking that you should take care of yourself just a little bit?

I know there are people that have no homes and even if they did prepare it was all for nothing. Those people need help. I am talking about the people complaining that there is not enough ice to save the food in their fridges and freezers.

Also I would like to know, since all we see here right now is local news, is how are we looking to the rest of the country?

2 Comments
by Heather on September 17, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Just Wondering?
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Posted by Heather on September 17, 2008

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/question-of-the-week-3/

Hurricane Ike

Well I survived Hurricane Ike. I think that FEMA should hand out t-shirts that say “I Survived Hurricane Ike ’08”.

OK, I will try to put my sarcasm aside for a minute. Please note that I said try!

First of all, my family is truly blessed. We made it through safe and sound. We have only minor roof damage, minor fence damage, we lost a live oak tree we just planted in our backyard and our satellite dish got turned a little and lost 2 of it’s pick-ups.

I live in the area where the red X is.

We were well prepared for this storm. We had all 3 of our vehicles gassed up. We had a generator, plenty of water and non-perishable food. I filled the tub up with water and put a bucket next to it so we could flush the toilet when needed. We turned our bedroom closet into a bunker in case of a tornado. We even put 4 baseball helmets in there “just in case!” We turned off our gas and our water at the house just before the storm hit. You might even say we were over prepared if there is such a thing. 

Our house is about 7 years old and is built to survive hurricane force winds. Not one single window rattled through the entire hurricane. I was very impressed. I would not stay for anything bigger than this hurricane, but I actually felt safe in this house during a category 2 storm.

Now for just a little recap of the storm:

  • Friday night we started getting tropical storm strength winds around 6pm.
  • I put both of my girls to bed around 9pm. My youngest went to sleep my oldest did not.
  • We lost our power at 10pm.
  • My husband fell asleep, passed out, on the couch around 11pm.
  • At 11pm or so we were getting hammered by hurricane strength winds.
  • My oldest daughter and I listened to our radios and made fun of the reporters all night.
  • At 2am we thought we heard what sounded like a tornado so I woke up my husband and my youngest daughter and we moved into our closet.
  • At 2:05am both my husband and my youngest daughter went back to sleep in the closet.
  • At 2:30 we kept waiting for a break with the eye coming but we never got it. It went just east of us by 5 miles.
  • At 3am my oldest daughter finally fell asleep in the closet.
  • At 3am I grabbed my daughter’s Game Boy and played Mario Kart while listening to my radio.
  • At 5am my husband got off the floor in our closet and moved to our bed. I swear he was sleep walking!
  • At 6am both of my daughters woke up.
  • At 6am the winds were not as strong so we left the closet.
  • I got up and walked around the house and heard a dripping noise coming from upstairs. Our roof was leaking so I grabbed as many pots as I could and put them around to save the carpet.
  • At 7am my husband woke up and asked my why I hadn’t woke him up. I figured we made it this far so I did not kill him! (Just to note I tried at least 5 times to wake him up!)
  • The winds and the rain finally stopped around 9am.
  • After the storm we got our generator going and plugged in the fridge, the TV, and 2 fans. I told our neighbors we had it and they came by and plugged in their phones when needed.
  • Our water came back on Saturday afternoon with full pressure.
  • At 7pm Saturday night I finally went to sleep after having been up for 36 hours!
  • We finally got our power back on Sunday night.

My heart goes out to everyone who were not as lucky as we were.

*Times are not 100% accurate!

3 Comments
by Heather on September 15, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
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Posted by Heather on September 15, 2008

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/hurricane-ike/

Video Of The Week

With Hurricane Ike hitting the Texas coast this weekend I couldn’t resist this video! 🙂

Hurricane Update 9-11-08 10:00 am: We are going to be hit pretty hard by Hurricane Ike. They are calling for winds of 110 mph and a 15 foot storm surge. I don’t have to worry to much about the storm surge but the winds will be a blowing! We will probably be without electricity when it is done blowing through here. But just like Arnold says “I’ll be back!”

5 Comments
by Heather on September 11, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Video Of The Week
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Posted by Heather on September 11, 2008

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/video-of-the-week-4/

Man, I’ve Been Busy!

I have been on the go for a while now it seems! It is all good stuff don’t get me wrong. I always think that when the kids go back to school I will get to slow down a little. As usual I am wrong!

My youngest daughter goes to a Catholic School so in order to volunteer they require that you take a class and have a background check done. This year I have finally decided to bite the bullet and go do it. I went and took the class last Thursday night and my background check should come back within a month. Hopefully it will come back all squeaky clean! Just to note: I am a goody two shoes and I have not even had a parking ticket in my lifetime, knock on wood! I thought it was funny because the lady who taught the class used to be one of our High School Spanish teachers. I of course went up and talked to her. She was best friends with my French teacher so I got to find out a lot about her. I thought it was really funny when we had to fill out a survey about the class and we had to put the lady’s name down I put down Mrs. ____ I just couldn’t bring myself to put down her first name! 

Last Friday my husband and I took our boat out for the day. It is great to be able to drop the kids off at school and dart on down to take the boat out.

Boat5

This is our boat sitting in the drive-way of the guy we bought it from last November.

Last Friday we had quite an adventure on the boat. We saw a dolphin, I had a blast catching Mackerel and we even managed to catch 2 Ribbon Fish. Man are they evil looking!

This is one of the Ribbon Fish we caught.

Here is a another picture of what a Ribbon Fish looks like…see evil looking!

 Sunday we took the boat out again but this time we took the kids with us. The weather has been great here in Texas, very low humidity and temperatures only in the lower 90’s. I caught more mackerel but this time I let both of my daughters reel them in. They only like to fish when the fish are biting! After we got done fishing we went “Cruising” around a place called The Kemah Boardwalk. The girls think they are hot stuff when we go through there.

This week it looks like we will be keeping an eye on Hurricane Ike. I hope we can keep up our good luck and it will go someplace else. I will be keeping my fingers crossed!

To top off my weekend my youngest daughter told me this: “Mom, I just noticed your boobs are finally bigger than your stomach!” Man you gotta love kids!

4 Comments
by Heather on September 8, 2008  •  Permalink
Posted in Life As I Know It
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Posted by Heather on September 8, 2008

https://purplecoloredglasses.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/man-ive-been-busy/