yIKEs!!! Getting prepared...and helpful neighbors...

Just like three years ago we had to board up our house as Hurricane Ike was headed right at us. At this time we were in the dead center of the storm. As time progressed and landfall was made we were on the West side of the eye...usually the "clean" side of the storm. Which was great for us...no tornadoes. There was much devastation in our area though as Surfside Beach (just minutes from our house) lost many houses and large buildings collapsed. Still waiting for news on my school in Freeport.

After the storm passed through Joel and Becky (neighbors of Greg and Cherlyn's) were headed to Oklahoma. They loaned us their generator which we shared back and forth with the Montforts. It was a life saver as it was very hot and humid. No one likes to be uncomfortable, but the heat while trying to sleep last night (Saturday night) made this poor pregnant lady feel like vomiting. We had the generator off at night so as to conserve the gas it needed to run for the daytime hours.
We filled every cooler we could up with water and also had several cans of gasoline in the garage for the generator or cars.
The night it hit was very scarey. It sounded like injured cows were flying past your window from the strong wind howling. The trees were blown so hard they were touching the ground and there were great big flashes in the sky from transformers blowing. The power flickered for several hours and finally went off at 3 a.m. It was very weird to be in a big city and to feel so unconnected from the world.