Hurricane Ike . . . Part 3 . . . The Clean Up

Thanks to the few members of the ward that helped us clean up!

The one good thing Ike left behind . . .

Some great pictures of the Sky . . .

Hurricane Ike . . . Part 2 . . . The aftermath

Well, there was no church Sunday because no one had power, and lots of people had damage to clean up.

We got power back Sunday night at about 8 PM. We were really lucky, as there are still people even today with out power (about 150,000 or so). The neighborhoods all around uround us were without power for nearly 2 weeks. Driving was pretty crazy seeing that most of the traffic lights were inopperable.

Our neigborhood was pretty lucky because they have taken down a most of the big trees. I did drive through the last 2 neighborhoods that the Taylor's lived in where every yard has multiple huge trees, and every yard had at least one tree, if not three or four. Their are trees and fences down everywhere. Here are a few pictures (these pictures don't even give Ike an ounce of justice, it really was worse than these depict)
Here is the Taylor's neighborhood

Here is some of their last neighborhoods

I tried going to the store on Monday to get diapers and see if their was any food, because the older lady that lives behind Craig and Elaine didn't have much food. It was pretty interesting. Wal-Mart had hardly any food at all, but did have power. Kroger had some non perishable food, but no power. They would only let a few people in the store at a time, and you would have to use a flashlight to see what you were looking for. The gas stations and grocery stores both had extremely long lines, and higher prices. One gallon of milk (about 5 days after the storm) was $4.68 (about $1 higher than usual). Here are a few pictures

Many people have tremendous damage to their property. Many people still have no food or water. Some people lost everything that they own. Hurricane Ike distributed damage to many not only in Houston and Galveston, but many places in Texas and other midwest states. Please keep everyone in your prayers.

Hurricane Ike. . . The aftermath Part 1 . . . The Story and Pictures you have been waiting for!

First of all, I am sorry it has taken me a couple of weeks to get this up. I have recieved quite a few emails and calls wondering how we are doing and what happened, so hopefully this will answer a lot of questions.





The night of the hurricane I took the girls out to play. It was a little breezy but not bad. The girls enjoyed playing and running around in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. I was watching the neighbor's weeping willow tree sway in the wind, and would try to imagine what the wind would do to it. As the girls were running back and forth I looked up at the one and only pine tree in the backyard, and noticed that it was getting blown a bit more than the others seemed to. I just had a bad feeling about the tree. When I came in, I mentioned that the tree looked like it was going to fall over, but Megan informed me that it just what trees do here, but that she was sure it would be fine. My nerves were calmed, so I went in and put the girls to bed, and of course posted more stuff on here about what was going on, while Dan and Megan watched a movie.

I went to bed around 12:30 AM and then Kate woke up at 3 AM. So I took her out to the living room, where I found Craig listening to the radio. I guess the power went out around 2 AM. We just kind of sat there and watched Kate play for a little while. Around 4:45 Kate fell back asleep, and Craig was starting to doze. I figured I would wait a little bit to ensure that Kate wouldn't wake up, when we felt the house shake and heard a big thud, and the light in the formal living room clink around. We were like, umm. . . what was that? So I went and layed Kate down, and Craig and I tried to peer into the dark to see what had happened. Of course, with no power and no sunlight, it took us about 10 minutes to realize that the tree had in fact fallen on the house. You could only see about 3 feet of tree hanging off the roof. So, I went and woke Dan up and we proceeded to try and get all the furniture moved out of the Dining room so that if the ceiling fell down that it wouldn't ruin their new furniture. Luckily enough Craig had some sort of battery thing that could run a lamp, so we at least had a little bit of light to be able to see.

After we were done moving everything, Dan and Craig went up in the attic to see what damage had happened. That's when they found out that their were quite a few holes in the roof, and water was comming in. So they went and got a bunch of plastic that Craig had bought, and proceeded to try and cover up the insulation and such so that it wouldn't get all wet. Then they put a bunch of buckets to catch the water.

When it was light outside we tried to run out in between the wind gusts to see the tree and the roof. It was pouring rain so we ran fast and couldn't get any pictures. The part of the tree that had broken was almost completely on top of the roof, and was hooked over one of the ridges into the other side of the roof. We figured that there wasn't anything that we could do about that part, and just figured we would try to keep the inside of the house from getting damage.

We went back into the dining room, and noticed that the ceiling was really wet and looked like it was going to fall through in one place. I tried to encourage them to let me cut a little piece of sheetrock out of the ceiling so that it could drain and not cause such a mess, but by the time I had talked them into it, it was too late. About 5 seconds later the ceiling fell down in that place. There had been a bucket of water in the attic their, so that came crashing down. Water and insulation went everywhere.

The buckets had all been used by this point, so we got a big red tub that the water could drip into. Then the water started leaking through all over the place. We ended up with half of us in the attic for the majority of the hurricane, trying to keep the damage to a minimum, with the others working in the house.

Then when another big wind surge came through the tree got dislodged from the roof where it had landed, and rolled down the roof where it caught on the chimney, where you see it in the pictures. When it dislodged, it pulled all the little tree nubs out of the roof, causing even more water to come into the house.

We tried to keep as much water as we could from comming in, but we still had about ten 25 lb tubs of water that we had to take outside. We even tried duct taping the holes closed.

I will let the rest of Saturday suffice to say that we spent the day cleaning up the inside of the house.

Well, we thought that was it. Then Saturday night it started raining again. Dan and I were sleeping in the front guest bedroom since our room had stuff all over from the carpet being pulled up. The girls slept upstairs. About 5:00 AM Sunday, Dan woke me up saying that water was dripping on his back. So we started again, trying to get the rain out of the attic, and trying to get all the furniture moved out of the bedroom.

This story, however, could go on forever. So, instead of continuing this novel, I will let if again suffice to say that Sunday we spent the day again, cleaning up the inside of the house, Here is a list of some of the damage and a few of the 400 pictures that we took of the damage. (Yes, I know thats a lot of pictures, but mostly for insurance sake.)

The formal dining room will have to have the whole ceiling redone, as their are 2 large holes, and many other wet places in the sheetrock. The entryway/hallway and front coat closet will also have to have the entire ceiling replaced as their are multiple places where water came through (just small holes), but the sheet rock is all wet. It came through the light fixture and a few other places in the entry way, and through the ceiling in the closet, and down the wall in the closet. The carpet pad and possibly the carpet will have to be replaced in the formal living room and the coat closet.

The front guest bedroom that the girls had been staying in also was leaking water from the ceiling. It was comming from the vent, but wasn't very bad until Saturday night. Then the water came through the ceiling and down the wall. The ceiling will have to be redone, new carpet pad, possibly new carpet. Plus the wall will have work done.

The back guest bedroom and Megan's bedroom had water come in some how so that the carpet all along the wall was wet. So we had to pull out all that carpet pad as well.

The attic has at least 12 holes from what we could count. The vent for the front 2 bathrooms is broken (the one comming out of the roof). One of the water heaters is unattached in the attic, and the exhaust vent is bent. The wood on the roof near where the exhaust vent comes out is broken. The vent for the Gas stove came loose, and the pipes for the heater came unattached. The fence will have to be replaced, the tree taken out, and some of the lanscaping fixed. The rain gutters will have to be fixed, and the insulation will have to be fixed. Plus, who knows what else. This is just what I can think of right now!

It is so sad to think that they just built this house, and that they haven't even lived in it a year yet and now their is so much damage.

Anyways, look for part two of Hurricane Ike.