Resident to Evacuee.

Ike's sun set, the first bands

We made good time as we packed the car while watching the traffic build on I-45. We left at 12:30 and I-45 was already back up to Brittany Bay where we live, which is about 25 miles from the center of the city. We option to take 146, which runs up the coast and the traffic heavy, but moving well. We made the bad decision of taking part of the toll road across the city since they had lifted the tolls, but we found ourselves at a crawl. After an hour of little progress we pulled out the half trusty map and took a few side roads. We probably added 40 miles to our trip, and cut off about two hours. We drove up through Sam Houston National Forest, making me once again remember that Texas does have stunning landscapes, just not in Houston. We found a Mcdonalds with a playground, let the kids roam and got to the shelter about 5pm to settle in for a few days.

Our church has a “sister ward” up in Madisonville so everyone has a place to go in the event of a hurricane. We stayed there when we evacuated for Rita a few years back. It’s a small branch building, each family taking a class room to make their residence for the coming days. It was barebones; bring your own bedding, food and supplies. There were no showers, but it was a safe place to stay and we are thankful for their support. We played lots of games and got to know some new families.

Eliza enjoying the shelter, the kids had a blast, they did not want to leave

Friday night the first reports started coming in as we watched CBS (the only channel we could pick up). We watched as the death and doomsday reporters stand on the sea wall telling everyone who stayed would suffer Galveston imminent death” as the waves crashed upon them. Idiots, but it was great to see Heraldo get pummeled by a wave. We wanted to know what was going on, not how big the waves were coming in.

Galveston went from “no need to leave” just a few days before to a “mandatory evacuation”. Even though the storm would hit as a CAT II the storm surge was that of a CAT IV, almost 20 feet. Government officials were asking those who stayed to write their SS# on their forearm in Sharpe marker so body identification would be easier….40% of the islands residents opted to stay.

So like all Americans we shut off the t.v. and turned to YouTube. After getting some great laughs we found a few guys located in Nassau Bay (across from NASA) doing mock reports. They would update hourly, driving around to all the communities taking footage. And they took requests. Although they had an arsenal of alcohol in their fridge and were pretty tipsy by 10pm, the raw footage they posted gave us a true idea what was going on.

At sunset I walked outside and the sky was beautiful, the first wispy bands were coming in and the breeze was slowly picking up.

By 8pm the Kemah boardwalk was underwater, by 9pm part of League City was flooding. The eye would come over our house around 1:30 am. By 11:30 the storm was ragging and we lost all signals so we went to sleep.

Ike swung North when it came inland and even at 150 miles inland we weathered a CAT I storm. The power went off at the shelter about 5am and the mugginess of the night set in. I can live without power, but when its still 80 degrees at night air conditioning is essential.

We woke up Saturday morning watching the storm rage over head. A friend stayed back in LC, updated us about our homes. The electricity was going, our cell phone no longer picked up signals and so we waited, patiently. By Saturday afternoon we found out part of the interstate was impassable and they were not advising League City residents to return until Tuesday, we left early Sunday morning….