Here Comes Ike!

Everybody -

Please don't buy into all the media hype about the 'utter devastation' of Ike. It't true that it was a whopper of a storm. But the storm surge was much less than predicted. I am a native Texan/Houstonian & "hunkered down" during the storm - because I am well out of the storm surge/evacuation areas. Our hospitals in the evacuation zones were evacuated well before landfall. Patients & staff were moved to our inland sister facilities in Houston, San Antonio & Louisiana. It was a very orderly process.

Galveston is a barrier ISLAND - not a good place to be in any storm, let alone one as huge as Ike. There was a very well executed evacuation plan that began 36 hours prior to landfall. Anyone who chose to remain was making a very unwise decision... putting first responders in peril when they had to make the inevitable rescues.

As a native, I know that a gas grill, generator and chainsaw are essential appliances. The power outage from Ike is going to be longer than normal because Houston is a very green city and we had massive tree damage -which took down a lot of our power infrastructure. Along with my neighbors, I was out on Saturday afternoon with my chainsaw and it took 3 days to clear all the debris. Every house in my neighborhood has huge brush/debris piles on the curb which will be picked up by the city as soon as possible.

I am still using the generator at home & working with an aircard for Internet access. But water pressure is back. Gas lines have been replaced with long lines at the washaterias. There are >30 Points of Distribution (PODs) where people can pick up water, ice, MREs & other supplies with no questions asked. People are being moved out of shelters and into temporary housing in hotels & apartment complexes - billed to FEMA if necessary. We're figuring out the best way to handle school for all the kiddos whose schools are going to be out of action for a while.

We're getting a lot of help. I have seen enormous convoys of repair vehicles coming to our area from places as far away as Canada. We're a very multicultural area with a lot of internal resources such as huge mega-churches that have stepped up with an army of dedicated volunteers. Most of them have established their own PODs which continue to be supplied with commodities by FEMA.

Just heard that water has been restored to Galveston, but they need to continue to boil water. As soon as they can get the sewer system repaired, debris cleaned up, and gas lines restored, their residents can come back in and begin to rebuild also.

We're an adaptable bunch of folks. New social activies have begun to crop up such as neighborhood meals - with everyone dragging their grills into a common area and sharing food that remains in their freezers and fridges. One of the more interesting phenomena is the fact that Ike didn't respect affluent areas any more than the rest of us. The local 'home shows' on TV now have segments on 'cooking with sterno' and how to entertain during a power outage...

Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern and offered up your prayers for us. It'll take a while to get everything cleaned up. Houses will have to be rebuilt - maybe some areas should not be rebuilt. But we'll be just fine.

Please don't believe all the media hype - if you look carefully, they keep showing the same pictures over and over again. It was a mess - still very inconvenient but we'll be just fine.