The Flight from Hurricane Ike

Hurricane season is just over half way through, but I'm ready for it to be over! Matt and I spend a lot of time watching the weather channel to see if the latest tropical storm from off the western coast of Africa is headed our way or not. We've had several scares, but Hurricane Ike was the real deal. We initially thought that Ike was going to head further south towards Corpus Christi, but Wednesday night, September 10th, we were watching the weather channel with our neighbors in Beaumont, and heard it was headed towards the Houston area. Our neighbors ate dinner with us and then jumped in their car and went to Dallas. Late Wednesday night, Matt and I hurried back to Houston to grab our important documents, and our 72 hour kit and move our journals and photo albums to higher ground in case our apartment flooded. We slept there that night and then headed back to Beaumont early in the morning so Matt could make it to work.

As we made our way onto the freeway, the Mayor's voice came over the radio and listed off 15 or so zip codes that were under mandatory evacuation. He said that those who did not heed the warning would be in danger of imminent death. Our apartment is 50 miles from the coast so we weren't in danger of flooding due to the 20' wave surge that pounded Galveston, but who knew what kind of rain there would be? We weren't about to stick around to find out. As we continued to drive, my heart was racing. We wanted to beat the crowds that would soon be leaving Houston. I kind of felt like we were in a movie called "Apocalypse". I know that I can be a little on the dramatic side sometimes. For Houston locals, they rarely take hurricane warnings too seriously cause a lot of times they fizzle or change direction. Some people didn't even leave Galveston!

After we were nearly half way to Beaumont, Matt's boss called him to tell him work was cancelled, and all of Beaumont was under mandatory evacuation. We hustled back to Beaumont, stuffed our clothes in a bag, jumped in the car and left, not knowing where we were going to go. As we were leaving, we saw several other people with their cars loaded up, and lines and lines of people waiting to get gas. We had to decide fast where to go so we could get on the freeway and beat most of the people. Since we had a long weekend, Matt suggested we make a vacation of it and go visit his sister, Jenny, and her family in Chattanooga, Tennessee....so we did. It took us 13 hours!!!!

Here are some photos of our vacation:

The bridge that crosses the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, LA.

The family crossing the freakiest bridge of all time (the picture doesn't do it justice) heading to Fall Creek Falls:

Madison and Hunter on a big rock:

Hunter, Chris, Madison, Jenny and Matt:

Fall Creek Falls (check out the people swimming and on the rocks at the bottom to get the scale of how big this thing is):

The kids playing with Lucy and living their dream of having a dog:

We had a lot of fun in Tennessee, but after a few days, it was time to go and face reality. On our drive back, we saw bazillions cherry-pickers and other emergency response vehicles heading towards Houston. It was amazing to see the support from neighboring states in times of crisis.

As we neared Beaumont (which is right near the LA and TX border), we saw many sights similar to the trampoline stuck in the electrical wires shown below.

There were fallen trees EVERYWHERE. It's no wonder that 2 million people were without power!

This is our apartment complex in Beaumont. There was siding and shutters EVERYWHERE! Lots of trees were uprooted.

Matt's car that we left in Beaumont could have been destroyed by the fence, but it held on by a nail or two.

Those of you who have read previous blogs of ours may recognize this picture. This is the view from our apartment BEFORE the hurricane:

This is the view AFTER the hurricane:

Since the power had been out for days in both Houston and Beaumont, we were welcomed home by two putrid refrigerators. Matt and I were unaware that milk turns yellow and translucent when unrefrigerated. We had lots of meat juices in our freezer and nasty spinach juices to clean up.

Many gas stations on our drive home looked like the one shown below. This problem even reached into Tennessee. Closer to Houston, the issue maybe wasn't that there was literally no gas but that there was no power to pump the gas.

Other gas stations that did happen to have power and gas had half a mile long lines and cops directing people to the pumps. SO NUTSO!!!

Much of the neighborhood surrounding our apartment looked like this. Several large trees fell, and sometimes on houses. There is still lots of cleanup to do.

Matt and I were prepared to be without power for as long as it took. We cooked our first meal on our camp stove on our deck. Just as we finished eating, the power came back on. Cheers could be heard from all over the apartment complex. Things are more or less back to normal at our Houston apartment, but Matt still doesn't have work in Beaumont and it has been said that it may be into October before all of Beaumont has power. More than anything, this experience has made me so grateful for the prophet's council to be prepared financially, spiritually, and with food storage for when disasters strike. The food storage Matt and I have collected since moving here is meager but, we've been trying and have been blessed for it. There were many people lined up at Red Cross stations around Beaumont and Houston in desperate need of food and water, but we weren't one of them!