Aftermath

Still enjoying being back on the grid. Was weird/interesting having no electricity for that long and not doing your normal routines. Many times I would walk into a room and flip the light switch expecting something. No TV, no Internet, none of them "modern luxuries" like using a washer & dryer. Had to fix our meals on the gas grill out back. We have a gas water heater and the water was not a problem for us, so at least we had indoor plumbing and could take showers. First few days was a freezer dump as we ate up most of the contents of our freezer (steaks, chicken, deer & hog sausage, etc.) but eventually, had to throw out a good portion of the meat as it sat too long in the ice chest. You learn to eat the perishables first and save the canned goods for later. One of the good things (if you can call it good) about a hurricane is that you normally have a few days warning so you can stock up on supplies. We had adequate food on hand to survive a week or two without hardship. It is just some of the perishables (i.e. milk) that you miss after a while. I had stashed a lot of water in the freezer as a source in case our supply had problems, but that was not an issue for us. Had not anticipated being without power for so long nor having most of Houston off the grid, so I had not stockpiled enough batteries for our flashlights/radios. Got most of our news by listening to the radio in the truck. The one thing we could not keep enough of was ice. Even with three good ice chests, the ice only lasted 2 days at most. A lot of distribution points set up in the area to distribute water/ice/MREs and we had to hit them up every other day. Most stores were off line until Wednesday/Thursday so the first few days after the storm rolled through were kind of apocalyptic. Few stores or gas stations were open and if you found one that was, the line was 2 hours long. I drove by Home Depot Sunday after Ike roared through and they had a line of 100 people standing outside for supplies that were being let in one at a time (no lights in the store). With past storms in this area, we could normally count on friends & family across town if we had problems. With Ike, the outage was so widespread that you had to go as far as San Antonio or Austin (3-4 hours away) to find supplies/gas. For the most part, we stayed close to home and ventured out only in the neighborhood to conserve our gas. Checked on my trailer to see if it survived the storm and found no damage except for a water leak through the a/c unit. Most of the rest of the area around the storage yard looked like a war zone with debris and downed trees/power lines.

Lots of folk were helping each other out in the area. Neighbors sharing ice/water. Helping clear debris from yard streets. Sharing your washer/dryer with neighbors with no power. Storing food for those without power/refrigerator. In spite of all of the destruction, there were many examples of people stepping up to help in times of trouble. Gives hope to a otherwise bleak situation.