Hurricane Ike Slideshow

Probably not a Good Idea

Picking up our son from school today, my husband snapped this pic. Now, I'm not a genius, but I think that it is probably not a good idea to leave all of this trash laying around right before we are scheduled to have 75+mph winds.

I think that if I lived across from the school I would make a few phone calls!

Pre-Hurricane Madness

Like any good host, we went out today to prepare for Ike's visit. There were groceries to be purchased, cars to be filled with gasoline, blah, blah blah. After all, this is our first hurricane and we want to do it right.

It is a mad-house out there! The highways were bumper-to-bumper at noon with cars heading north. The gas stations were reminiscent of the 1970's with lines of cars idling gallons of gas waiting to pump more in. There was still bottled water everywhere, but the isle of canned foods in Wal-Mart looked like the candy isle on Halloween night. Nada! I have never seen anything like it. You would have a better chance of finding a bag of ice in the Sahara.

Thank goodness Walgreens was still stocked. They even had sales going, go figure.

So with our hard found provisions, we dug out our camping equipment from the mountain of boxes in the garage. Here we struck gold: Flashlights, propane stove, ice chests, first aid kit and more!

This girl is shopped-out! But I think that we are ready. (I hope)

-From Hurricane Central, Amy Sue reporting

Hurricane Ike's a-comin'

For all of our friends and family who may be remembering that we did move to Houston and are not in glorious Colorado: yes, Ike is heading toward us; no, we are not leaving; and yes, we are crazy (but you knew that!)

It looks like Hurricane Ike will make landfall just to the west of Houston. Seeing that the strongest part of a hurricane is on the east side, we should see some action. That's right, I said action. We want to see some excitement out of this. Of course I don't want anyone in the area to be killed, injured or lose their homes; but I'm a storm-chaser at heart and can't seem to get in the middle of anything good.

My daughter and I took a trip to Florida in 1999 and were there when Walt Disney World closed for the first time in history. Hurriane Floyd decided to turn away at the last minute so we missed the show.

This year Tropical Storm Edourdo gave us a nice steady rain all day, but no wind. Hurricane Gustav didn't even do that much.

Floyd, Edourdo, Gustav: I'm not having much luck with men!

Regardless of the fact that we are crazy to WANT a hurricane, we aren't stupid. We are north of Houston and not in a surge zone. So we aren't in any danger.

During Hurricane Alicia in 1983 (cat 3 and a direct hit to Houston), the area that we have moved into did not evacuate and had no significant damage. There were even evacuation centers located here for the residents living south of Houston. This is were the evacuees go!

We have pulled out our camping gear (in case of power failures), are hitting the stores to stock up on non-perishables, and filling our cars up with gas just in case. The schools are out tomorrow, and Donna in Dallas has offered us a place to run to if needed. We will be fine.

I am going to post to this blog as often as possible during the storm to let you know what is going on. Maybe I can even send pics.

Love to all,
Amy