hurricane IKE update

[y] it's about 11:30am here in houston on saturday and there is still some wind and rain outside our house from hurricane ike. it looks like it is moving away from us and we're just getting the southern outer bands of the hurricane. thankfully, we never lost electricity. we're also thankful that the worst extent of the damage to our home was that our back fence fell down and there's a leak somewhere in our roof into one of our guest rooms. a water pumping station is also out of commission so we barely have running water anymore. BUT, because of gordo's good planning, we have a bath tub full of water we can use for flushing toilets, etc. each person also had a head light (the ones you use for camping/caving) in case the electricity went out. and gordo cooked a whole batch of his famous soy sauce chicken (to use up the chicken in case the electricity went out). go gordo!

the scariest part of the night was probably around 5am when the wind was howling and shaking our windows. we didn't board up any windows and we don't have those nice double-pane or storm proof windows so we were afraid they would break from the wind. thankfully, no windows broke. although i can't say the same for other houses around us. we don't have any landscaping in our backyard and since our neighborhood is a young neighborhood, there aren't any huge trees near us...so we were spared from tree limbs damaging our house. the water level of the bayou behind our house is rising, but i don't think it will reach the top and threaten to flood our house.

my parents evacuated from clear lake because they were in a mandatory evacuation zone. it was nice having them here all day yesterday and today...in their boredom, they cooked for us, cleaned our house, trimmed the dead part of our plants, and took Trinity on walks. we just hope their home in clear lake didn't sustain too much damage, although they do have huge oak trees and are susceptible to flooding.

we've seen news reports that some downtown buildings have suffered major damage where windows have been blown out and office material are scattered all over downtown. galveston experienced a LOT of damage and apparently the entire island is without electricity. there will be a major cleanup effort in the coming weeks.

anyway, just wanted to let our friends and family know that we're doing fine and staying put at our house until they say it is safe to go out. we're curious to see if our condo and church were damaged so we will assess that when we are able to leave the house.

please continue to pray for the many people without electricity (praise God a cold front is moving in on monday)...for people who sustained a lot of damage to their homes...for the emergency crews and city personnel who are assessing the damage and answering the calls for help.

the view of our backyard from our 2nd floor bedroom with fence blown down
(kinda looks like we have a waterfront view huh...)

a house across the bayou with a hole in their roof, 1 window blown out, and fence down