Remembering Hurricane Ike

September 13, 2008--Hurricane Ike strikes Galveston Bay and proceeds inland.  I live in Huntsville TX, we were not the most effected, but we got creamed.

So, here's the personal chronology:

I had just started in Real Estate.  I was at a closing of my very first sale at noon on Friday, September 12 2008.  It was all downhill from there.

I got home as quickly as I could, and my husband and I started bringing everything in from the outside, hummingbird feeders, bird feeders, hanging baskets, patio furniture.  We have 3, 4o+ foot porches--all with stuff on them.  Our house was full to the brim.

During this time, my very first clients were moving in to their new house.  The winds started to pick up that afternoon.

Water covered roadways in Galveston county long before projected.  There were already reports of people who were trapped, unable to evacuate. Wow, this was serious.

You know it's been a while since I have allowed myself to think about it.  We were safe, but our neighborhood sustained a lot of damage and loss of life.  It was heartbreaking. Our neighborhood really pulled together.  Our neighbors were great!

That night was full of unusual noises, crashes of glass, trees moaning, cracking, snapping and crashing, tornadic activity and the freight train noises that go with it.

No cell phone, no power for a long while.  The first e-mail I received on my Blackberry was a picture of my first clients new home with a 70 foot tree through the middle of it.  Yikes.  It was very sad.

When times get tough, I guess we get tough with the help of family friends and neighbors.  That's when we find out what we are capable of, I guess.

So many people suffered so much in this tragedy that was Hurricane Ike one year ago.  I am so grateful it has been a relatively quiet year in the tropics, at least in the Gulf of Mexico.

Where we are today:

Bolivar: Very little has been rebuilt.

Brennans (the restaurant that burned to the ground) is supposed to reopen in Dec.

Moody Gardens got 14 feet of water and lost 70% of the fish in the aquariums.

They are tearing down the Flagship (Galveston) and haven't decided if they are rebuilding the Balinese Room or not.

Galveston lost 35,000 trees.

Boliver had 3500 houses destroyed and only 250 have been rebuilt.

Stats:

32 Billion in damage in the US making it in the top 5 costliest Atlantic Hurricanes in history

103 people killed in the Caribbean and the US

Gale force winds extended 420 miles--top ten in recorded history

Two people were killed in Huntsville, one with a few blocks of us.