We survived Ike...

We are truly lucky. We live in Kemah on the East side-which is known as the Lighthouse District or the Entertainment District. We're about 8 blocks South of the Kemah Boardwalk and 2 blocks from Galveston Bay.






We are surrounded by destruction-but somehow our house made it. We had very minimal damage. It's still hard to believe.

We returned to our house on Sunday to assess the damage. We came prepared with generator, gasoline, water, food and ice. We are still without power and have been living by generator for a week. We're used to camping out so it hasn't been bad. And we can't complain, because we still have a secure roof over our heads. The kids think we're on some sort of vacation. They have been playing outside, riding bikes, finger-painting, helping pick up tree debris in the yard, playing dress up, etc.

They have done a good job of keeping themselves occupied without the use of the electricity. We've been very sparing with running the generator since gas is so expensive and had been hard to come by (many more stations are open now). We only run the generator at night for a few hours of TV, a fan and a lamp. We also have a portable AC unit we borrowed from my in-laws. It will be a savior this week as the weather has warmed up. Last week was cool after the storm and we just opened up all the windows to let in a nice breeze.



However, the nostalgia did wear off so we took a break and spent this weekend in Central Texas. It's given us a chance to cool off in real AC, take a hot shower and finally get access to the Internet!

We will return home tomorrow to try and return to a normal routine. It will be different though as my daughter's school will not be reopening until Sept. 29th.
(Pictured below in the background is our Elementary School)Plus, because our neighborhood has been all over the news and tourists as well as locals have become looky-lous and the area is a hotspot for looters. The City is still under curfew from 7pm to 7am and there are only two entrances into the neighborhood. The local police and the National Guard are strictly enforcing the curfew and ingress/egress of the citizens. Military vehicles patrol the streets at night with spot lights to look for looters and curfew-breakers. There is a constant flow of news, private, military and coast guard helicopters surveying the coastline. It does make us feel safe from looters, etc., but it's weird.

We took advantage of a local FEMA Point of Distribution (POD) location because many of the stores did not have ice either because they didn't have power or they were out. We also received a case of water and MRE's. Our thoughts go out to all those affected by Ike from Haiti to Ohio. It was a massive storm. We've been helping where we can and even donated blood as the blood banks in the Gulf Coast area of Texas are in critical need. If you can donate to the Red Cross, donate blood, volunteer at a POD location, or lend out a generator-I'm sure there are many people who would be grateful.

LINK TO IKE PICTURES ALONG GULF COAST

UPDATE: We have electricity after two weeks!!
Link to more pictures of the Kemah area http://rklowe.zenfolio.com/p219036363/h2f5af6bd#h2f5af6bd