Post Ike living

Well a lot has happened since my last post. Ike blew through the Houston area late Friday night/early Saturday AM back on 9/12/08. We lost power around midnight (00:08) when the first significant gusts started for us on the North side of town. The worst of the storm hit us between 03:00 and 06:00 Saturday AM.

All was going according to plan as I stayed up listening to my emergency radio (TV was simulcasting on a popular FM radio station) and I had my scanner on listening to the fire/EMS traffic. We had plenty of food, water, and batteries to last us a good long time, and my 2 year old was fast asleep (until about 06:00).

Our best friends, whom we were talking to via cell phone off and on throughout the storm didn't lose power until 08:30, and got it back around 19:30 that evening, so we spent the night with them. After that, my Mother-in-law got power and we stayed there until our power was restored...15 DAYS LATER! I was not prepared for 15 days without electricity. We ended up using the battery packs that I had for clean-up around the house in the folowwing 2 weeks, and i did use the solar panel to recharge them - it worked pretty well.

We are definitely going o have to look into other options in the near future if we are looking at prolonged outages like 2 weeks.

Next blog will be about personal responsibility and the victim mentality that has overtaken our "American Spirit".

Gustav, Hannah, and Ike???

Well I guess the Republican party must have offended somebody important to have this type of distraction from their convention. Honestly, I think the political conventions are 90% hype anyway but I'm sure there's another blog all about that; back to the topic at hand.

I live in Houston, and it looks like we've dodged another bullet so-to-speak this season. I wonder how much more complacent everyone gets each time this happens. I have my Family Disaster Plan (www.MyDisasterPlan.com), disaster kit, and "go bag" ready, but hopefully I won't need them this season.

It looks like LA fared a little better than expected although all of the damage assessments aren't in yet. I hope the Carolina's (Hannah) and wherever Ike goes do just as well. I like a good storm as much as any disaster buff, but they can really be a disruption (at the least).

I remember living through Alicia back in 1983 (?) and we just had tree damage mostly, but we were without power for 3 or 4 days...HOT! Anyway I feel for those folks in LA.

Well this is the first post on my blog...look for much more substantive posts in the near future, I just couldn't resist babbling a little this evening. Let me know what's on your mind, and we'll get into the good stuff!