Hurricane Ike hit overnight on Friday and early morning Saturday. We went to bed watching in horror as the storm surge flooded Galveston, Surfside, Kemah and more and the storm had not even hit land yet.
Families all across the area "hunkered down" in their inner rooms for the night. My kids slept on our bedroom floor as we paced back and forth looking outside waiting.
We lay listening to the wind roar. I have no other way to explain it except with this analogy my husband came up with afterwards. A tornado is like one quick punch. This hurricane was 12 hours of a tornado. The wind was relentless. The rain sounded like it was slicing our windows in two.
At 3 a.m., my mother in law just texts to say they had lost electricity. For a brief period, we feel relieved that maybe we had missed the brunt of the storm. We go back to the front window to look out.
"Rob, the floor is wet! Is the water getting high out there?"
I of course, look out the window, but in the dark can't see anything.
"It is the window, I think it is coming in at the seams," he said.
"Thank God! Did something hit it? I will run get some towels."
We place the first of many towels.
By 6 a.m., we had lost power and lit candles. The kids were awake and we moved to the hallway with pillows. My daughter tried coloring in the dark to kill time. The kids took turns jumping from lap to lap between my husband and I.
At one point, I got cereal out for the kids. I don't think anyone was hungry, we were just looking for anything and everything to stall time.
I saw my husband look worried and I think that was it for me. My stomach sank and I was scared for the first time. I try to make light of it all.
"Honey, we have insurance. It will be ok," I say getting no response.
He later confessed he was more worried about us then our material things. He wanted to make sure we were safe and walking around getting cereals, etc. was making him nervous. That and he had thought our roof would be gone in the morning.
Thank God for the iPhone. What seemed like ten hours later, we were able to tell the eye had passed by using the internet on the phone. The rain was still coming, but the wind was lessening. I wish I could have recorded the eerie sound of the wind for you to hear.
As daylight started to creep in, we watched the water rise on our street. My husband moved our car as close to the house as he could.
Throughout the day, we were shocked to see people driving around. We watched as cars would have to pull down in the water on our street to pass because a tree had been uprooted and covered the road.
When the rain stopped, my husband and kids went out to survey the damage and check our roof. The roof was fine. Our fence was down. They walked through knee high water to the end of the cul-de-sac. My husband said it looked as if people were jigsawing back and forth around downed trees. It was a strange site.
At 6 p.m., the water had gone down enough to drive thru so we decided to explore as well. Being in a house with young ones and no electricity gets old real fast. The heat and humidity at this point alone can kill you.
Our neighbor yells out that local store is open. We jump in the car in hopes that maybe they have some meat already thawed. We have one meal worth of meat that is still frozen despite no power for a day. We were hoping to grill out something like hot dogs.
We call our in-laws who asked for a soda, but by the time we get to the store the line is long. The store is out of power and running on a generator at the cash register. They are letting one family in at a time. They had cut off the line because of curfew.
Since the city is black, curfews are in effect because it is so black and you never know when you are driving into high water or debris.
So we had hopped in the car unprepared for what we saw. A tree uprooted into a house. Fences down everywhere. Power lines down across roads. Stop lights hanging all the way down to the street. Shock on people's faces everywhere. It is just a very surreal experience.
As it begins to rain again, we head home. We make a picnic by the window to capture the last little bit of daylight. We realize my son has had a peanut butter day. Peanut Butter Crunch for breakfast and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and dinner was his menu for the day. We all get tickled.
We pull mattresses into the living room. We listen on the radio. The announcer states that us in the northern areas should look at the damage then multiply it 40 times to picture what Galveston looks like now. I begin to feel sick as he explains it looks like a landfill.
We realize the we have a charged up travel dvd player that the kids had gotten last Christmas from their mimi. I ask my husband if the kids could watch a movie before bed. We light candles and watch High School Musical 2. Two-thirds of the way through, the battery dies.
As the kids realize how dark it is with no power, they begin to break down. My son cries that he is too young to go through this. My daughter cries because she is soaking wet from sweat. My son starts to get really sick turning pale and looking sick. We get a wet towel to cool him down.
We slept off and on that night still exhausted from no sleep before. The kids were miserable and so were we. Halfway through the night, a storm comes to torment us for yet another night. With it good things are coming.
