Helloooooo Nurse!
Long time no update ladies and gents. And for those of you paying attention to the news, an update well received. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about--get out from under your rock.
Let's start with what's on everybody's mind: Yes, I was in the line of fire for dear ol' Hurricane Ike. As you can see I am well and alive. No, my house does not have power, neither one of them. I'll explain in a bit.
Lets start from the beginning. We had been watching Ike, as everybody else had been in the gulf coast area, for a while. When they realized it was more likely to hit Texas then Louisiana or anywhere else, we immediately made preparations, but we made preparations in accordance to "We'll possibly be on the dirty side, and it might turn out like Allison." Allison, for those of you who don't know, I believe was only a Tropical Storm. It blew through Houston when I was about 12. I remember it clearly because it was one of my first all night baby sit the sister things, and my dad had to wade through waist to chest (at points) deep water in the middle of the night, water filled with fire ants, about a good three miles in order to be home for me and my sister, while my mom holed up in a hotel with about 40 strangers in a ball room. Allison shouldn't have been bad. Allison's problem was that she was slow. Very very slow. So she flooded us out. From our indications, that's what we thought Ike would try to do. Blow us around a bit like Rita, and then just sit on top of us and flood us out.
Last minute Ike decided to hit Galveston, and so began the mass evacuation. After dealing with everybody running from Katrina and Rita to here, we've got our evacuation system down. I don't know what the national media is saying, I don't care. From local reports and "evacuating" myself, it worked. University of Houston is just south of downtown Houston, right off of I45. I45 is an evacuation route from Galveston. UH tossed around the idea for awhile "Do we have classes Thursday or not? What about Friday?" They finally realized Friday was a bad idea, and decided on Thursday "We should close campus, at 5pm" which was a stupid idea if you ask me. You see, evacuation orders for Galveston started at noon. So everybody is on I45 to get out of Galveston. Then you have the people who went to work downtown leaving their offices at noon as well for their lunch breaks, coming back, and then leaving at--get this--5. So you're stuck with the evacuation people, plus normal rush hour all on I45 because that's the route you take to go north--and nobodies gonna go South, obviously. So needless to say, I skipped my last class, grabbed what I could, and booked it to home. Once I got home was when I found out, oh no, Ike's not just going to brush by really close--He's headed straight towards us, specifically downtown Houston.
I actually got home faster than usual because 45 was shut down at the point I normally went through, so I cut through Downtown (which was dead, it being about 2 or 3 in the afternoon) and then jumped on it at a later, more clear point. That, and the Tollway was free. So that's fun. Anyway, I got to my mom's house, and set up. Got in a fight with not one, but two of my friends (good job Jessy) neither one of which let us settle things, one just disappeared (did not loose power, she's further north than I am) and the other one calling it quits for the night, which I couldn't blame him for, but really, if he had waited five minutes, we would've been fine, y'know? I digress! I sat and watched TV before getting shoved off to bed. It was horrifying. The storm hadn't even made land fall, and the wind alone was knocking out power. Galveston had three--THREE --separate fires going on by about 11pm, the first starting some time after 7pm, and fire fighters couldn't reach a single one of them. The storm hadn't even made land fall yet. So, we settle in for the night, curl up in bed. At about, I want to say 3ish, my mom and sister were moving about the house, and there was the first loud crash (not thunder, wind, note there was no actual thunder nor lightning where I was). I woke up, and moved to mom's room with the two of them, where me and mom slept for about an hour before bolting up. Here's the conversation:
Mom: ...Shh!!
Me: I didn't--
Mom: SHHH!
...
Mom: Oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit, do you hear that?
Me: ...is that...is that water?
Mom: There's a leak in the house, fuck!
Note that my sister, thankfully, had ear plugs in. She didn't hear the wind tearing our house apart, scraping unknown objects against the wall right next to us, the rain battering us from all sides. Nor did she hear us as we frantically searched the house, or my mom's cry as she realized that the front light fixture was pouring water from the attic into her front hallway on her hardwood floors. She didn't hear a thing as we scrambled for towels and the big (empty) party barrel to catch the water.
Nor did she hear the door slam open and then shut, and then open and then shut again at about 6 when it was light enough for my mom to decide it worth while to run out into the rain in PJs and the boot on her broken foot (Slipknot and Disturbed Moshpit, rebroke it in the shower) in the middle of a fucking hurricane, to see if there was a tree in her roof. And then of course me following behind to drag her back in.
After that it was a flurry of, another leak in another light fixture in mom's bathroom, the garage ceiling is starting to buckle, move the cars out in case it collapses we'll still have a chance of transportation, pack up a bag, we're running to our neighbors, your dad is on his way for you girls, go.
So I wound up at Dad's on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. Monday I found out UH, though being hit worse then my neck of the woods, managed to get electricity (all of downtown actually has electricity, but it is closed because all of downtown looks like what NYC would've looked during 9/11 without all the dust from the buildings--papers, laptops, and some dust from some smaller things--and more glass from the windows) and classes would resume Tuesday. Attendence is voluntary, considering most people can't leave their home, or even get back to the Greater Houston area, much less come to class, but still. Some sense of normalcy (though when this became normalcy is beyond me).
We figured out with mom's house, comparing it with damage along the street, that a tornado formed right above her house. Our roof has two peaks Like this: ^ ^ It formed hit the furthest right slope tore off all (ALL) of the shingles and matting early on in the storm (so that the rain soaked through, in the attic, and then through the walls of our garage, which include the side wall of our front hall and the back wall of my mother's closet--all of which needs to just be torn out because it's quite literally spongy) then it bounced, hit a small section of the next slope, bounced, hit our neighbor, bounced, hit their neighbor, and then died.
Mom's having a mental break down, but her current boyfriend builds houses for a living, so...he's taking care of her in his house which just regained electricity Monday afternoon. My sister is still at my dad's with no electricity and the dogs until further notice. Her school is out until Tuesday for sure, when they will reevaluate.
They're saying power won't be completely restored to all affected areas for two to four weeks, and cable, internet, phone service, possibly longer (except for me, obviously, yay for being a college kid). Cell phone coverage has been spotty at best, and apparently FEMA took over some of the lines, and that's always encouraging. Nevermind the goverment is fucking around with phones, FEMA is fucking around with phones. That's got disaster written all over it.
You have to remember, I live in Texas. Normal temperature around this time of year is high 80s low 90s. But, a cold front did come through, so for about the next week our nights will be dropping down to about 50-60 before climbing back up to the mid-80s. There's a lot of people who don't have a university or a boyfriend's house to run to--my sister and my dad and his girlfriend and her kids and my dogs for example. If you find yourself sitting there going "Hm...I should help Texas!" for the love of God, please do. I heard some one bitch, obviously some one from New Orleans or with family from over there "Well, y'know, Ike's so bad--least you didn't have to walk on bodies of people to get out!" and yeah, y'know, it's not Katrina. It's not New Orleans. But you know what else? We don't have a city full of people who knew a Cat 5 was coming our way and just sat there and did nothing, and we're not a freaking fish bowl like New Orleans. Further more, no, so far our body count is low. Give it time. If they can't get that electricty running--we already have a high body count around this time of year from older people who don't think they can afford AC (even though it's required for all residential buildings this far south to have AC units). That number will climb.
I digress...again...The important part you all want to know is: I AM OKAY. My house, is not. My mental state, is not. My emotional state? As much as I've wanted to cry, I haven't had a chance yet. I've been forcing myself to eat. It's hard to eat when there's a storm coming your way, when it's fizzling out above you, when it's 95 degrees out and you're poking your wall like a sponge, when you're sitting in the middle of what you used to consider your home, before family politics got in the way, with you're two dogs, with no electricity, your dad's girlfriend and her kids, knowing your mom is at your neighbors house probably trying not to cry over the fact that we might not be able to salvage the house and now she doesn't have her kids or dogs. So while I had no power, I was nibbling. I ate the most I've eaten in about five days now once I got back to campus, and I think I actually over ate because I'm feeling a bit sick. I'm going to try to make classes for the rest of this week, but I might just skip a few here and there and head home to see the friends who I fought with before the storm, and my mom. I actually drove around (bad Jessy, wasting gas) and saw some friends. The two I fought with were the only ones not home--naturally. I'm a worried wreck over those two, those are like...my loves. And all three of us are fighting about separate things with each other. It's nasty.
If I left anything out you want to know about, ask. I might do something about my life at college later but at this point? I just...gah...y'know?
Public because I'm sure there's at least one person whose not on my FL who, hopefully, still cares.
Let's start with what's on everybody's mind: Yes, I was in the line of fire for dear ol' Hurricane Ike. As you can see I am well and alive. No, my house does not have power, neither one of them. I'll explain in a bit.
Lets start from the beginning. We had been watching Ike, as everybody else had been in the gulf coast area, for a while. When they realized it was more likely to hit Texas then Louisiana or anywhere else, we immediately made preparations, but we made preparations in accordance to "We'll possibly be on the dirty side, and it might turn out like Allison." Allison, for those of you who don't know, I believe was only a Tropical Storm. It blew through Houston when I was about 12. I remember it clearly because it was one of my first all night baby sit the sister things, and my dad had to wade through waist to chest (at points) deep water in the middle of the night, water filled with fire ants, about a good three miles in order to be home for me and my sister, while my mom holed up in a hotel with about 40 strangers in a ball room. Allison shouldn't have been bad. Allison's problem was that she was slow. Very very slow. So she flooded us out. From our indications, that's what we thought Ike would try to do. Blow us around a bit like Rita, and then just sit on top of us and flood us out.
Last minute Ike decided to hit Galveston, and so began the mass evacuation. After dealing with everybody running from Katrina and Rita to here, we've got our evacuation system down. I don't know what the national media is saying, I don't care. From local reports and "evacuating" myself, it worked. University of Houston is just south of downtown Houston, right off of I45. I45 is an evacuation route from Galveston. UH tossed around the idea for awhile "Do we have classes Thursday or not? What about Friday?" They finally realized Friday was a bad idea, and decided on Thursday "We should close campus, at 5pm" which was a stupid idea if you ask me. You see, evacuation orders for Galveston started at noon. So everybody is on I45 to get out of Galveston. Then you have the people who went to work downtown leaving their offices at noon as well for their lunch breaks, coming back, and then leaving at--get this--5. So you're stuck with the evacuation people, plus normal rush hour all on I45 because that's the route you take to go north--and nobodies gonna go South, obviously. So needless to say, I skipped my last class, grabbed what I could, and booked it to home. Once I got home was when I found out, oh no, Ike's not just going to brush by really close--He's headed straight towards us, specifically downtown Houston.
I actually got home faster than usual because 45 was shut down at the point I normally went through, so I cut through Downtown (which was dead, it being about 2 or 3 in the afternoon) and then jumped on it at a later, more clear point. That, and the Tollway was free. So that's fun. Anyway, I got to my mom's house, and set up. Got in a fight with not one, but two of my friends (good job Jessy) neither one of which let us settle things, one just disappeared (did not loose power, she's further north than I am) and the other one calling it quits for the night, which I couldn't blame him for, but really, if he had waited five minutes, we would've been fine, y'know? I digress! I sat and watched TV before getting shoved off to bed. It was horrifying. The storm hadn't even made land fall, and the wind alone was knocking out power. Galveston had three--THREE --separate fires going on by about 11pm, the first starting some time after 7pm, and fire fighters couldn't reach a single one of them. The storm hadn't even made land fall yet. So, we settle in for the night, curl up in bed. At about, I want to say 3ish, my mom and sister were moving about the house, and there was the first loud crash (not thunder, wind, note there was no actual thunder nor lightning where I was). I woke up, and moved to mom's room with the two of them, where me and mom slept for about an hour before bolting up. Here's the conversation:
Mom: ...Shh!!
Me: I didn't--
Mom: SHHH!
...
Mom: Oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit, do you hear that?
Me: ...is that...is that water?
Mom: There's a leak in the house, fuck!
Note that my sister, thankfully, had ear plugs in. She didn't hear the wind tearing our house apart, scraping unknown objects against the wall right next to us, the rain battering us from all sides. Nor did she hear us as we frantically searched the house, or my mom's cry as she realized that the front light fixture was pouring water from the attic into her front hallway on her hardwood floors. She didn't hear a thing as we scrambled for towels and the big (empty) party barrel to catch the water.
Nor did she hear the door slam open and then shut, and then open and then shut again at about 6 when it was light enough for my mom to decide it worth while to run out into the rain in PJs and the boot on her broken foot (Slipknot and Disturbed Moshpit, rebroke it in the shower) in the middle of a fucking hurricane, to see if there was a tree in her roof. And then of course me following behind to drag her back in.
After that it was a flurry of, another leak in another light fixture in mom's bathroom, the garage ceiling is starting to buckle, move the cars out in case it collapses we'll still have a chance of transportation, pack up a bag, we're running to our neighbors, your dad is on his way for you girls, go.
So I wound up at Dad's on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. Monday I found out UH, though being hit worse then my neck of the woods, managed to get electricity (all of downtown actually has electricity, but it is closed because all of downtown looks like what NYC would've looked during 9/11 without all the dust from the buildings--papers, laptops, and some dust from some smaller things--and more glass from the windows) and classes would resume Tuesday. Attendence is voluntary, considering most people can't leave their home, or even get back to the Greater Houston area, much less come to class, but still. Some sense of normalcy (though when this became normalcy is beyond me).
We figured out with mom's house, comparing it with damage along the street, that a tornado formed right above her house. Our roof has two peaks Like this: ^ ^ It formed hit the furthest right slope tore off all (ALL) of the shingles and matting early on in the storm (so that the rain soaked through, in the attic, and then through the walls of our garage, which include the side wall of our front hall and the back wall of my mother's closet--all of which needs to just be torn out because it's quite literally spongy) then it bounced, hit a small section of the next slope, bounced, hit our neighbor, bounced, hit their neighbor, and then died.
Mom's having a mental break down, but her current boyfriend builds houses for a living, so...he's taking care of her in his house which just regained electricity Monday afternoon. My sister is still at my dad's with no electricity and the dogs until further notice. Her school is out until Tuesday for sure, when they will reevaluate.
They're saying power won't be completely restored to all affected areas for two to four weeks, and cable, internet, phone service, possibly longer (except for me, obviously, yay for being a college kid). Cell phone coverage has been spotty at best, and apparently FEMA took over some of the lines, and that's always encouraging. Nevermind the goverment is fucking around with phones, FEMA is fucking around with phones. That's got disaster written all over it.
You have to remember, I live in Texas. Normal temperature around this time of year is high 80s low 90s. But, a cold front did come through, so for about the next week our nights will be dropping down to about 50-60 before climbing back up to the mid-80s. There's a lot of people who don't have a university or a boyfriend's house to run to--my sister and my dad and his girlfriend and her kids and my dogs for example. If you find yourself sitting there going "Hm...I should help Texas!" for the love of God, please do. I heard some one bitch, obviously some one from New Orleans or with family from over there "Well, y'know, Ike's so bad--least you didn't have to walk on bodies of people to get out!" and yeah, y'know, it's not Katrina. It's not New Orleans. But you know what else? We don't have a city full of people who knew a Cat 5 was coming our way and just sat there and did nothing, and we're not a freaking fish bowl like New Orleans. Further more, no, so far our body count is low. Give it time. If they can't get that electricty running--we already have a high body count around this time of year from older people who don't think they can afford AC (even though it's required for all residential buildings this far south to have AC units). That number will climb.
I digress...again...The important part you all want to know is: I AM OKAY. My house, is not. My mental state, is not. My emotional state? As much as I've wanted to cry, I haven't had a chance yet. I've been forcing myself to eat. It's hard to eat when there's a storm coming your way, when it's fizzling out above you, when it's 95 degrees out and you're poking your wall like a sponge, when you're sitting in the middle of what you used to consider your home, before family politics got in the way, with you're two dogs, with no electricity, your dad's girlfriend and her kids, knowing your mom is at your neighbors house probably trying not to cry over the fact that we might not be able to salvage the house and now she doesn't have her kids or dogs. So while I had no power, I was nibbling. I ate the most I've eaten in about five days now once I got back to campus, and I think I actually over ate because I'm feeling a bit sick. I'm going to try to make classes for the rest of this week, but I might just skip a few here and there and head home to see the friends who I fought with before the storm, and my mom. I actually drove around (bad Jessy, wasting gas) and saw some friends. The two I fought with were the only ones not home--naturally. I'm a worried wreck over those two, those are like...my loves. And all three of us are fighting about separate things with each other. It's nasty.
If I left anything out you want to know about, ask. I might do something about my life at college later but at this point? I just...gah...y'know?
Public because I'm sure there's at least one person whose not on my FL who, hopefully, still cares.