Yikes! Ike!

The last week has been quite crazy for me. Since weather never stops, neither does my job. Hurricane Gustav came close to impacting our area of SE Texas, but counted our blessings that it did not. Hurricane Ike developed in the Atlantic Ocean while Gustav was moving through Louisiana. Ike moved around the edge of an upper level ridge in the Atlantic (sorry about the weather jargon) and through Cuba. At that point, we started to prepare for a possible landfall again along the Texas Gulf coast. I had been working midnight shifts and working on our 7 day forecast package. I could see that we would be under the gun as far as where Ike will impact. The way Ike was beginning to track across the Gulf of Mexico, the forecasted tracks of Ike slowly shifted towards Galveston. Wednesday last week I decided that Amber needed to go to higher ground in Nacogdoches. At this point, Ike was expected to track towards Matagorda Bay, but given how the forecasts had changed, I still felt like we needed to get Amber to a safe place, and prepare the house for Ike. Thursday, the tracks started aiming at Freeport and then Galveston. Thankfully, I would be safe in our building that houses the Galveston County OEM as well. It is built to withstand a category 5 hurricane. I just hoped that our house that was built to 2003 housing code for hurricanes would hold up. I had all the storm shutters put up, and everything ready to bunker down for the storm.

Operations at work were crazy and maybe I will post more on our operations later. Thursday was supposed to be my last midnight shift, but given the hurricane I would work 2 more mid night shifts including a 12 hr shift Saturday (midnight-noon). Hurricane Ike made its presence felt early on with storm surge Friday. The track of Ike had also shifted enough that perhaps Nacogdoches was not safe any more either. After a gut wrenching decision, I asked Amber and her parents to leave Friday night for Tulsa. They were able to get there well in advance of the storm. Given some of the data of storm surge I had seen, I had called Tommy (Amber's brother in Sulphur, LA) to get him thinking about leaving. Around midnight I text him to get out. Tommy, Jenn and Allie made it safely Friday morning to Deridder, LA where Jenn has family. So, with family out of harms way, I had to focus on my job which was a 12 hour shift with a landfalling hurricane.

I was able to get some nice video of the storm while at work. I was able to go outside as the eye of Ike passed over the office. More than anything, I was just trying to keep focused, and do my best to get out any warnings and statements on the storm. Ike's western eye wall passed over most of our area and the SW part of the eye was stronger than other hurricanes. Our office worked well off of generator power and we never lost communications. Even our radar did not fail while facing hurricane force winds. There was going to be a lot of damage considering the winds, storm surge, and rainfall. We had about 12 inches of rain in our area and at the house. After my 12 hr shift, I was able to get out for an hour to check on the house since I only live a couple of miles a way. Fortunately, there does not seem to be any structural damage to the house, and not even shingles missing. We did lose our entire back fence except a few spots. We had a couple of trees down that I ended up replanting. The retaining pond behind our house did not go out of its banks even with some surge through area bayous and 12 inches of rain that were not able to run off properly. We are thankful that God has blessed us with this house and that we only had damage to the fence.

We are without power so Amber will stay in Nacogdoches a little longer. The storm moved through Nacogdoches and Amber's parents only had a few limbs and branches down in the yard. They were without power until it was restored this afternoon (I'm writing this in Nacogdoches). They drove back home Sunday after the storm passed. I drove to meet them Sunday evening after working around the house. So, we are all safe and well, although I am very tired still after working 9 mid shifts in a row and 20 hours of OT. I am not a big fan of 60 hour work weeks.

Please also be praying for Tommy. Their house had some water in it after the storm surge in Sulphur backed up the drainage and sewers. Pray they can get their house restored.

I will try to update the blog more when I can. I have lots of thoughts on this whole event, and will use the blog as a way to de-compress from it all. Pray for us as I work this week and we figure out how to take care of Amber and the baby. Our medical plans talked about last post are on hold since our hospitals took a good hit from Ike. Thank you for your prayers! -Scott

Pictures are of the house after Ike. I like our lake front property.