Hurricane Ike!

Well, for any of you interested, my parents rode out the Hurricane that hit Houston on Friday/Saturday. My family lives right between Houston and Galveston where the eye of the storm was headed. I called them on Thursday to see if they were being evacuated or not and my mom informed me that they were currently boarding up the windows and were going to stay at home and ride out the storm. They evacuated last year for a hurricane and it wasn't worth it to them to spend 18+ hours on the road to make it up to Dallas (normally a 5 hour drive). Our city did not have a mandatory evacuation notice so they prepared well and were blessed. The city sent out notices that they were not expecting much flooding in the area unless you live by creeks or water fronts. My family has been through quite a few floods and hurricanes and our area has been ok with no serious flooding.

Here are the updates via text from my dad:
Saturday 9:45am - We are ok and survived Ike. Lost power at 12:30am, now on generator for fridge and freezer. No major damage just clean up. Had phone land lines but lost them.
Saturday 11:35am - No water or flooding in our area of the city. We have now lost our phone land lines.
Saturday 6:14pm - It has been a long, hot, wet day but we are doing well without power or phone. We have water and natural gas and I even got a shower and a nap this afternoon after cleanup. We are camping out using the generator, grill, lantern, candles, and even a "hurricane" lamp. We are doing well and it could be worse.
Saturday 6:46pm - No church tomorrow but at 9am we are going to Bishop Ellsworth's and Sister Peterson's to cut trees. The bishop's tree fell onto neighbor's driveway. The church was damaged at front and back ends. Power may take up to 2 weeks to be restored.
Sunday 6:41am - Happy Sunday. It is another beautiful day. We all got a good night sleep. Still no power nor phone line. Water and gas and shower is nice. Generator running well and one fan. We are doing as well as possible.
Sunday 6:47am - We may have our own mtg. The church was damaged too and our small scout trailer blown across the parking lot. We are going over to the bishop's house to help remove a large oak tree from his yard that fell into his neighbor's drive way.
Monday 6:34am - Happy Monday. It is another nice new day. Cool weather came in and it is 69 this morning. We still have the back yard to clean up with down fence and more tree limbs. Still no power nor phone lines but we have 2 friends in town who's power back on late last night so there is good hope. There are 2 stores and 1 gas station open in town now too. Getting better.

Things seem to be going as well as can be expected after such a big hurricane like that. I'm so relieved to know they were protected during this dangerous and damaging storm. The pictures above are ones I found on the internet but it shows you just how big this hurricane was as it approached Galveston late Friday night. The first picture is of the beach in Galveston and all the debris. My heart goes out to all those who were effected by this natural disaster.