Posts Tagged hurricane ike
Remembering Hurricane Ike Three Years Later
Its simple amazing how much time has passed under the bridge in the last 3 years. On September 13, 2008 Hurricane Ike made landfall, and changed the lives of tens of thousands of people forever.
Mom and Dads house was totaled, sold to the insurance company and demolished.
One of my best friends has rebuilt and now has a nice place.
My brother has rebuilt and seems to be no worse for the wear.
It was somewhere around 10:00pm or 10:30 that I lost phone contact with my kids who were riding out Hurricane Ike in Houston. I figured they were ok, but I worried about them until I knew for sure they were safe.
The winds with Ike were not near as bad as Rita, but the storm surge with Ike was probably 10X worse the Rita. With Rita southeast Texas got a little storm surge, but nothing like what came in with Ike.
The next morning after Ike passed through, my family and I left the shelter we were staying at and went home. I hooked to pit up to my truck and pulled the pit around to the front of my house. I wanted to pit fired up and cooking something, so that the people driving down the street would be assured that life would return to normal.
Posting stuff on the internet
When you’re talking to someone in real life, words are like dust in the wind. But when you post stuff on the internet, its like etching your words in stone. The difference is, people can go back and read what you posted. Once your words are spread to the wind, they can not be retrieved,…
Making bug out plans
Some type of disaster has either arrived or is heading your way – whether its an earthquake, hurricane, food shortages due to a new disease outbreak,,,,, you and your family need to get out of the city. You have made plans to stay at a rural farm with some friends, but the problem is getting out of the city.
Fuel – the very first problem your going to run into is having enough fuel to get out. Once the panic buying starts, fuel is going to be one of the first things people buy up. Everyone will be filling up their gas cans, cars, trucks, generators, 55 gallon drums,,,, and as a result, the gas stations will be cleaned out. The first people to leave the cities will help finish off the fuel supplies in rural areas. So don’t think that your going to find a gas station in a small town to get fuel, its not going to happen, everyone else will beat you to it.
Maps – as the major roadways become clogged with cars and trucks, your going to need to find an alternate route. When parts of southeast Texas evacuated for Hurricane Ike, people from Houston, Port Arthur, Bridge City, Lumberton, Orange,,,, sat in line for hours. On high 69/96/287 leaving Port Arthur, Texas – people were running out of gas sitting on the highway. The highway department had to send tanker trucks out to fill peoples cars and trucks up with fuel to keep the lines moving. What normally took a 1 hour drive, took 10 hours.
Our throw away society
It was about 2 and a half weeks ago that I was cleaning out my truck – it needed to be washed, the inside vacuumed, and the storage compartments of the doors cleaned out. While I was cleaning out the compartments in my trucks doors, I noticed I had collected several throw away items:
Some stickers – when I see the local volunteer fire departments collecting money I will stop and throw some money in the boot. The amount of money is usually just the change out of the door, but its better then nothing. In return for the donation, the fire fighters will usually give you a little sticker of some kind. Why do I need a sticker at all, its just going to be thrown away. The fire departments could have saved a lot of money be not handing out stickers – that were just going to be thrown away.
A calculator – it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turned out to be a waste of money. One of those door-to-door sales guys came to my job a few years ago. He had this really neat looking calculator, and it was only like $3 or $5. So I said “sure, why not.” The calculator was bought, put in my truck, and might have been used 2 or 3 times.
Where your at right now
Why are you where your at right now? What are you doing there? What course of events drove you to be at your present location?
As I get older, I think about my life, and the course it has taken. There is some regret, there is some happiness and some sadness.
A couple of weekends ago my family and I were up at the camp having a relaxing weekend. One of the people there was a long time friend of mine – we have been knowing each other since around 1977 or 1978,,, somewhere in there. At the day turned to night, we built a camp fire, grabbed the lawn chairs and talked about past times.
Floods from nautral disasters
This is the intersection of HWY 87 and chemical road, which is between Orange and Bridge City, Texas. 2 major intersections which were blocked by debris and water from Hurricane Ike. Keep in mind, this intersection is about 20 inland from the Gulf of Mexico. As far as anyone could remember, this part of Orange…
Trip to Bridge City
My wife, my 2 daughters, 2 grand kids and I made a trip to Bridge City today to go see mom and dad. Moms birthday was on July 17th and they are getting moved into their new house this weekend. Its been 10 months since hurricane Ike passed through and the recovery process is still…
Flooded roads after a natural disaster
After natural disasters – such as a hurricane – roads may become flooded and impassable. This video was filmed after Hurricane Ike passed through the Southeast Texas area in September 2008. Its important to know where the back roads are and how to use them.
Complacency and disaster preparedness
After a few false alarms, people become complacent with their disaster preparedness plans. Meaning, that they do not think that anything serious is going to happen. When you let your guard down, that is when the real disasters strike.
Becoming complacent with disaster preparedness
As Hurricane Rita was making its way through the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, the projected path was towards the Houston and Galveston, Texas area. An evacuation was called for parts of Harris and Galveston counties. Which is where the cities of Houston and Galveston are located.
The way evacuations are “supposed” to work, the areas that are nearest the Gulf of Mexico are evacuated first. Which is Galveston, and lower Harris county. That is how its supposed to work in theory. In reality, how does one of the largest cities in the USA evacuate? They dont. There were stories of people spending 18+ hours on the highway and not even going 10 miles.
There are 2 major highways going north out of Houston – HWY 59 and HWY 45. Going east and west, there is Interstate 10, 1960, old HWY 90 and 105. HWY 105 is north of the Houston area. It goes from Beaumont, through Cleveland, Conroe and finally hits HWY 6.
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