Hunker Down!

As a resident of the Gulf Coast, you spend half of your life preparing for the likelihood of a hurricane making landfall in the area you live in. It may not happen this week, next week, or even this year, but you prepare just in case. You hope it doesn't come your way, but you prepare just in case it does.

We live in Sugar Land, Texas, about 50 miles from Galveston, and just south of Houston. We are in the path of Ike. Yes, it will hit Galveston first, but the winds and rain will reach as far north as the north of Houston. Therefore, we will feel the full effect of Ike. They say here, where I live, we should expect to see winds from 75 - 100 mph. That's hurricane force winds, people! That's the equivalent of a Category 1 storm.

By the way, in the map above, Houston is not where they put it. I think that's where Corpus Christi or Victoria might be. Houston is right underneath the line of path for Ike. I used the map because it's the only map I can find at the time.

Right at this moment, we are experiencing winds. They are not too bad, yet. We haven't gotten any of the rains yet. We have tried to prepare as much as possible. Corinne was going to board up some of the windows, but we didn't have anything to board some up with. We have plywood, but we don't have the nails or screws or screwdriver to do the job. We bought some more water, and some non-perishables. I think we are ready for the hurricane.

The big news on TV is Galveston is already under water. Since this morning, the water has been coming into Galveston and flooding the streets. The water has been coming over the seawall, which is about 15 feet tall. Imagine standing next to a 15 feet wall, and the water is coming up over it! And it hasn't even started raining yet. We haven't even seen the first effects of the storm yet. They said Galveston is flooding because the hurricane is pushing the water forward before the hurricane. On the west end of Galveston, there are houses already under water. Those houses are normally a LONG way off from the beach. The water is now right under their houses.

Here are some pictures from the news media of Galveston:

See how the waves go over the seawall?!? There's supposed to be a 15 - 18 foot drop over that side.

I hope everything is OK. I'll let you know how we weathered the storm. They have asked us to "shelter in place", and the news media is calling it "hunkering down". Well, we are going to "hunker down" and hopefully everything will turn out O.K.