Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Hurricane Ike









Hurricane Ike was expected to hit late Friday night (09/12/08) or early Sunday morning (09/13/08) so after much thought I decided I wanted to leave on Wednesday night. I was told that I was "panicking" and that there was no need to risk leaving late at night by myself with the baby but I was determined to get out of here before everyone else decided to leave. I was afraid that we would have the same evacuation problems that we had for Rita (took us 16 hours for a drive that normally takes 2!) and there was NO WAY I was going to take the chance of being stuck in traffic for that long with Ava.

By the time I got everything together, stopped by the store and stocked up on baby food, water...etc and took Amber and the cat to my moms, it was about midnight. So Ava and I slept at moms from about 1am to 3:30am and I was on the road by 4am on Thursday morning. We evacuated to my Mother-In-Laws place about 3 1/2 hours away.

My mom, step-dad and the kids stayed behind as well as my husband. Michael ended up heading over to us Friday afternoon. I was extremely worried about my family that stayed behind to ride out the storm, but am thankful to say that they are all ok. Our family was very blessed to have minimal, if any, damage to our homes. Electricity was out everywhere and still is in lots of places. We got our power back on Sunday night, thankfully.

I feel horrible for the many people that have lost their homes. I drove around the other day offering food, water and ice to those who were still without electricity. I have tried to help out others as much as I possibly can. We actually met a few of our neighbors that we hadn't met before. One of these neighbors cooked a bunch of steaks, chicken and hot dogs and invited everyone on our block to come eat. It's great how everyone pulls together to help each other out in a time like this.

This has really opened my eyes to all the many things that I have taken for granted. Like running to the grocery store and getting everything I need! Many stores and restaurants and so forth have not yet opened. Some places are opening during the day but only running off generators. I was able to get a gallon of milk at Wal-mart today, but still have not been able to buy any meats or other dairy products. (thankfully, I have enough for a little while) I am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Here are a few photos that a friend uploaded on Myspace. I took a few myself but have not uploaded them yet.

**I am not able to upload any photos to blogger at this time, but will soon.**

2 comments:

Unknown said...

wow, glad to hear you're ok! and that's great to hear everyone pulling together in a time of need.

Ashley said...

Thanks! :)