y"IKE"s!!!! It looks like a hurricane came through here!

So-- I will take it from the beginning. 3 years ago when Rita was threatening Houston we took our jet skis 2 vehicles the cat AND a boyfriend on a leisurely drive to visit family 241miles away in Marshall TX. Because we were so smart and left early we beat the traffic and it only took us 16 hours. The night the storm hit Marshall (oh yes Rita FOLLOWED us) Danielle was riding on the back of a four wheeler driven by the afore mentioned boyfriend -in the dark, no shoes, no helmet when they decided to race down the hill. You guessed it CRASH Dani's head split open and a hot metal bolt burned a 1" deep hole in her ankle. She also received some lovely bruises. Then to top it all off we were W/O power for 3 days while our neighbors in Houston had the power back on within 1/2 a day. For these reasons (and also because our mayor Bill White did a great job of telling people who should stay and who should get out quick) we elected to fight our urge to go play and stay to face the storm.

IKE-We were without power for about 3 days but had a generator to keep fans and refrigerators going. We all spent the storm in the master bedroom with mattresses up against the window (a great comfort very time the wind shook those windows like a throw rug). A couple of neighbors had trees on their houses and MANY trees snapped off or uprooted. A large pine blocked the street but was quickly removed by neighbors working together. Our neighborhood really took care of each other. When our power went on on Monday night our neighbors across the street still had none. The rest of the neighborhood spent nearly another 2 weeks without power. We saw several extension cords across the street! I guess most people we know were well prepared because as we offered help many times people refused our help. The cool front we got shortly after the storm DID help. All frozen foods were missing from stores for about a week and for the first 4 or 5 days staples like bread were absent. The kids enjoyed playing outside together while adults worked.