Riding Out Hurricane Ike in Houston Texas

As many of you are aware Will and I both live in Houston, Texas. Hurricane Ike came through the coast of Texas on early Saturday morning. Will happened to be out of town, but I was at home "riding the storm out".

I had a few elderly family members with me that I was caring for as well during the time. I had a total of five people in my house with me. Some of the people had limited mobility which added another element to their personal safety needs. About 2:00am Saturday morning we started experiencing heavy winds. In fact, the wind was so strong that it was howling outside. I had heard the term howling before, but did not really understand what that meant until I experienced it first hand.

The winds got up to about 110 miles per hour for the storm. The wind was a bit less when it hit my home in Houston since the city is about 50 miles north of the coast line. At 2:00 am the eye of the storm was over Galveston Island. The storm was moving 14 miles per hour. Thus, I would experience the eye of the storm in about 3 ½ hours and then several more hours of the back side of the storm.

The winds were so strong at 2:00am that I panicked and started getting a closet ready to sit in. As I was doing this the pressure was so great outside that my front door was whistling. It sounded like a train whistle which you can imagine is very loud. I put my hand up to the door and the pressure coming inside was tremendous. My next door neighbor had a door that was blown up from the pressure despite having a dead bolt lock.

The storm continued to pass very slowly. I live in a three story townhouse that has some steel construction due to the building's height. I was thankful for this extra structural strength. My building was vibrating from the strength of the storm. The wind continued to pound away for the next 8 hours. About 10 am the storm has mostly passed by. Right now I still do not have electrical power which in Houston is very tough due to the high humidity and heat. I have driven around some of the city and am amazed by the amount of damage. There are many beautiful big trees that have been uprooted from the ground like they were brand new saplings. Signs have been blown away or bent from the extreme winds.

I was fortunate to make it through the storm. I had a few roof leaks, but other than that my structure appears to be fine at this point. It will take awhile for Houston to come back together. I cannot imagine the amount of debris that will need to be picked up to clean up the city.

There were a few websites that I used for reference to monitor the path of the storm while I had power. If you find yourself in this situation, you may find these of use.

http://www.stormpulse.com/ - Stormpulse

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032128/ - MSNBC Weather - you need to find the storm link and select that. This site allows you to zoom in to find your specific part of the city that you live in. From there you can find useful information such as storm path projections as well as estimated wind miles per hour.

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/ - Wunderground (Weather Underground). This is a good site for checking everyday weather in your area. They have a series of several maps that you can use to look at that show many aspects of the storm.

All of these sites follow the National Weather Service. Each of these websites is updated as the National Weather Service updates which is every 3-4 hours.

I am glad to be here and up and blogging this morning. Will and I are usually good about getting new stories out so I appreciate your patience since we have not been as productive. I have some pictures that I have taken that I will try to get up in the next few days. Take care - John.