Leonidas
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Electricity back on yesterday afternoon.
My fence is down, my neighbor lost part of his roof, a few trees on houses in the 'hood, but we really dodged the bullet here. If Ike had gone in at Freeport as once was predicted, we would have been hit hard here. And even if he had gone in on the west side of Galveston it would have been pretty bad, but he jogged to the east just a tad more at the last second and all of that made for a comfortable distance. It was still a strong storm here, we got 40-50 MPH winds starting at about dusk and it got stronger as the night went on. The wind didn't die down except when it changed directions as the eye passed, and the back side was even worse then the front. Most of the damage here was done after the eye passed. 10-12 hours of tropical force to hurricane winds.
Power company kicking butt, 260,000 back online by last night and another quarter million back on by this morning.
Most people had enough supplies to last for at least 72 hours - we did. Ice was going to be critical by last night, and if the power had not come on I would have been standing in line at the local Kroger where supplies were getting in.
There is a interesting battle brewing between FEMA and the government officials in Houston/Harris County. The grocery stores were bringing in ice, as were radio stations and other private entities. A reporter asked a FEMA rep for information on when their trucks would be coming and he dodged around the question. I don't expect FEMA to come deliver stuff to my door, nor do I expect them to be bringing in supplies right after the winds stop blowing. But, I wonder, as do many others, how is it that the state, grocery stores, radio stations, etc., all bring in stuff almost 24 hours while FEMA can't even give an estimate on when their presence will be felt. The Houston Mayor practically called him a lying SOB from the podium. For the next news conference Chertoff was there trying to get in front of the question. Chertoff tried to lay it off on local officials, but I don't think they will accept that. Nobody here expects too much early help from FEMA, but we don't appreciate lies and double talk.
Agree that the news spent a lot of time focusing on certain areas and not given at least some updates on what was going on in other areas. It was interesting to watch on my little battery powered TV, but without phones and internet, we were in the dark on what was going on in our area.
No phone service worked after the storm. Hard lines, cable telephone, cell phones, text messaging, etc. were all dead. I did get one or two cell phone calls out right after the storm, but soon after the system was out.
Neighbors were all great. We all got out early Saturday and cleaned up everything. Folks with chainsaws got bored and started clearing the streets until the city came out with front end loaders. Everybody helped each other out which is a great thing to see.
A cold front came in yesterday and the weather is gorgeous. Low humidity and daytime temps in the low 70's. I can't remember the last time I saw that in September.
Time to go back to work. Got to be careful though, seems like a lot of people die in the preparation and cleanup stages of these things. While we were covering windows the other day all we heard were sirens. Lots of folks falling off ladders and sawing off fingers I guess.
My fence is down, my neighbor lost part of his roof, a few trees on houses in the 'hood, but we really dodged the bullet here. If Ike had gone in at Freeport as once was predicted, we would have been hit hard here. And even if he had gone in on the west side of Galveston it would have been pretty bad, but he jogged to the east just a tad more at the last second and all of that made for a comfortable distance. It was still a strong storm here, we got 40-50 MPH winds starting at about dusk and it got stronger as the night went on. The wind didn't die down except when it changed directions as the eye passed, and the back side was even worse then the front. Most of the damage here was done after the eye passed. 10-12 hours of tropical force to hurricane winds.
Power company kicking butt, 260,000 back online by last night and another quarter million back on by this morning.
Most people had enough supplies to last for at least 72 hours - we did. Ice was going to be critical by last night, and if the power had not come on I would have been standing in line at the local Kroger where supplies were getting in.
There is a interesting battle brewing between FEMA and the government officials in Houston/Harris County. The grocery stores were bringing in ice, as were radio stations and other private entities. A reporter asked a FEMA rep for information on when their trucks would be coming and he dodged around the question. I don't expect FEMA to come deliver stuff to my door, nor do I expect them to be bringing in supplies right after the winds stop blowing. But, I wonder, as do many others, how is it that the state, grocery stores, radio stations, etc., all bring in stuff almost 24 hours while FEMA can't even give an estimate on when their presence will be felt. The Houston Mayor practically called him a lying SOB from the podium. For the next news conference Chertoff was there trying to get in front of the question. Chertoff tried to lay it off on local officials, but I don't think they will accept that. Nobody here expects too much early help from FEMA, but we don't appreciate lies and double talk.
Agree that the news spent a lot of time focusing on certain areas and not given at least some updates on what was going on in other areas. It was interesting to watch on my little battery powered TV, but without phones and internet, we were in the dark on what was going on in our area.
No phone service worked after the storm. Hard lines, cable telephone, cell phones, text messaging, etc. were all dead. I did get one or two cell phone calls out right after the storm, but soon after the system was out.
Neighbors were all great. We all got out early Saturday and cleaned up everything. Folks with chainsaws got bored and started clearing the streets until the city came out with front end loaders. Everybody helped each other out which is a great thing to see.
A cold front came in yesterday and the weather is gorgeous. Low humidity and daytime temps in the low 70's. I can't remember the last time I saw that in September.
Time to go back to work. Got to be careful though, seems like a lot of people die in the preparation and cleanup stages of these things. While we were covering windows the other day all we heard were sirens. Lots of folks falling off ladders and sawing off fingers I guess.
). I think I will probably pay to have my tree removed so that the rest of the branches don't fall on the new fence during the next storm, which I would imagine he would appreciate after this.
