[Ansteorra] FW: Ike, go west young hurricane

[Patricia Schmidt]

Hi All!

I Had a vacation bungalow on the West Beach of Galveston.  Since I can not
get there to check it out (read Marshal Law-EVERYONE stays out for at least
the next 3 weeks), I can't get there to see what may or may not be left.

I actually live in the Woodlands, which is 36 mi. N of Houston proper up
I-45 N. I lost many trees including a 60ft. pine that fell in one complete
piece in my back yard. Fortunately, there were 2 Oaks to guide it down.  As
a result, it didn't hit my place or my Neighbor's place, but it did take out
part of the fence of a vacant house. We lost power last Thursday and just
got most of it back in our area today.  We have been lucky that a cold Front
moved through and has kept a nice north breeze going and temps in the upper
70's to lower 80's in the day and in the upper 50-low 60's at night. (The
nice thing is not having to run the AC!) 

Yeah, nowhere on the coast is ever safe.  It's the price we pay for living
in Paradise, ya know? I have considered Australia on occasion... I am so
glad to know that so many fared well in spite of it all.  The relief efforts
have been nothing shot of Herculean and well organized for the most part. 

Take care to yourselves.  I'll be pulling out my chain saw in the morning
once again to keep on trying to clear things away.  It's a mess, but it
could have been so much worse.  BTW, we had 18" of rain here and I'm more
than 1 1/2 hrs. Inland. I am supposedly to go back to the office on Tuesday
in Downtown Houston, which took a nasty hit and nearly all of the tall
buildings that had East-facing windows don't have them any more.  They're
all on the city streets.  If they can get a majority of it cleaned up, back
we go! Many portions south of Houston are all but obliterated, such as the
Bolivar peninsula & Crystal Beach, others areas are severely damaged like
Galveston, Tiki Island, Baycliff, League city, Clear Lake, just to name a
few of the many more that I did not.

Jalali, who's riding with a chainsaw and a humongous chipper/shredder for a
while