We survived Ike!

Do I get a t-shirt that says "I survived Ike"? Friday, school had been canceled and so we sat outside ALL day long and played waiting for the storm to come. It was a beautiful day and it definitely was the calm before the storm. That night we came in and had our last home cooked meal because we did not know when we would be able to cook again. We went to bed and woke up at 2 am when the power went out and he stayed up all night long listening to the big bad wolf try to blow our house down. We're so glad our house is made of bricks! Have you ever heard 100 mph winds? We saw our neighbor's trees across the street fall down at 5 am. We shined our flashlights in their window from our window and they shined their flashlight back as if to say can you believe we are surviving. They moved here from New Orleans after they lost their home after Katrina. Here is a picture of their house. They lost four trees. They are so grateful that that fell in the direction that they did. One went through another neighbors fence. It is also good that they had that open space next to their house or they would have fallen on top of someone's house.
This is taken from our upstairs window so you can see how tall the trees were that collapsed across the street.
This picture is of a house also across the street from us. Their next door neighbors tree landing on their roof and made a hole in the roof and so water was running in flooding their bedroom. It was great to see neighbors out helping during the rain trying to help this family tarp up the room and cut the tree down.This is a house around the corner. The tree fell down and went right through the fence.

This is our park in our neighborhood. Look at those roots. The tree fell on top of the playset.

This is the tree at the park from a different angle.
Another neighbors house. It really is amazing that most trees went the opposite direction of the house.
Here is one with the trees hitting the back of the house.So, after driving around and seeing these trees all over the road and with the electricity out, we decided to evacuate and go to my brother's house in College Station which is about an hour northwest from us. Their power did not go out. Not like the 5 million in Houston that are without power. They are telling us it may be 2-4 weeks before our power is restored. Are you kidding me. My kids loved driving around and seeing all the down trees. It was a sight that I hopefully will never see again.
We emptied out our fridge/freezer (the smell would be atrocious if left in their for a whole month without electricity) and headed north. We don't know what to expect. All we know is that we are grateful for electricity and grateful that we survived. Hopefully, we won't be kicked out too soon! It's amazing to think that we are 70 miles north of where the Hurricane first hit landfall and look at our damage in our area. Now my brother wants to do his blog about the day the evacuees came to stay....just kidding.