Ike Part 3

For part 2 click here

For part 1 click here

The power went out at about 1:35pm, it got so noisy after that it was very difficult to sleep. Ike took about 8 hours to pass over us completely. 2 hours of tropical storm, 4 hours of Hurricane and then another 2 hours of storm. The Eye of the storm passed to the east of us. My brother in the U.K actually asked if I could go out in the street and shoot a video of Ike passing over us - maybe he still hasn't forgiven me for hitting him in the nose with a golf club when we were kids :)

Our street had no damage, though 1 block over 2 houses caught fire and were gutted by the flames, a power line came down on them and started it I believe. This fire means it's going to be a while before the house gets electricity again.

We spent most of Saturday playing boardgames. I reheated some stir fry for lunch and pizza for dinner (hooray for gas stoves). We went out for a walk in the neighborhood and took some pictures. And then the street had another impromptu gathering at the house with the generator (and the booze). People were firing up their gas grills to use up the meat in their freezers :)

Here are some random pics - click on any of them to see full size.



To see more pics of the aftermath click here

Sleeping last night was very difficult because of the humidity. It also started raining and storming again.

This morning I tried to leave the neighborhood but the flood waters prevented me. We played some more boardgames and when the water receded headed over to a friends house who was further out of town and had air conditioning!

Aaah the luxury of electricity.

I'm booked on a flight tomorrow for my course in Tucson, but I haven't heard for certain when the airport is going to re-open. If it gets too late it won't be worth flying out as I will have missed too much SIGH