Baby Novillas!!!!: Hurricane Ike!

Well...I always said that I didn't want to be 8 or 9 months pregnant in the middle of the summer not only because of the heat, but also because of HURRICANES!!! Ike proved me right once again! As most of you know by now, the Houston/Galveston area took a beating from Hurricane Ike last week. I live in League City, which is less than a mile from Galveston Bay and I must say we were very lucky. At the last minute, Hurricane Ike made a jog to the east about 20 miles which spared not only my house from a tremendous storm surge, but also my work and the homes of many, many, many of my friends.

I'm from Florida and hurricanes don't usually worry me too much. I've been through SEVERAL of them and have only evacuated twice. Once when I was a little girl for Hurricane David in the early 80's I think...and three years ago with Hurricane Rita. A Cat 2 (such as Ike was), really didn't worry me too much, as I've ridden out LOTS of Cat 2 and Cat 3 storms. What worried me with Ike was the storm surge...they were predicting a storm surge equal to that of a Cat 4!! What was worse, being so close to the water and having only lived in Texas for 6 years, I had NO CLUE what the flooding could be like in my neighborhood. Further complicating matters were that Kiko had to work the day of all the evacuations and my city management stinks. They kept telling my city that we were not a mandatory evacuation zone. It wasn't until Friday morning when they finally said Zone A was Mandatory (which I live in), but the City of League City kept saying we were VOLUNTARY. Talk about confusing!!

So there I was, the morning of the storm's predicted arrival, trying to wake up Kiko and John (as Kemah is already starting to flood...less than 2 miles away) and get them to leave. We ended up "hunkering down" in a hotel room in the Medical Center, about 20 miles away as we didn't leave enough time to get further inland. We lost power at about 1:30 am and water about 10 am at the hotel, but the winds weren't that bad (even though there was a lot of damage...It wasn't any worse than I'd seen with Hurricanes David, Erin, Andrew, and several others I'd been through). What I was really worried about was if my area had flooded.

Saturday morning, we drove back and checked on the house and it was like a ray of sunshine! The house was perfect! A few small plants were blown over, my fence out back was leaning a little, and my pool was now a moat...but not a shingle was missing! My neighborhood was pretty banged up and a lot of friends were not so lucky with damage, but we were spared the devastation that Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston received. The only tough part was enduring no power...i.e...no AIR CONDITIONING....which to a PREGNANT woman is HELL!!! LOL! So Kiko and I loaded up the car again and drove out to Austin to stay with my Aunt and Uncle.

Of course, the day after we arrived in Austin, our power returned back to League City. LOL. So we turned around and came right back home and have been cleaning up ever since!

All in all, we fared very well and it was great practice for us to prepare for a bigger hurricane that we pray will never come. We appreciate all the prayers and we hope that all of our friends are safe and sound! Here are some pictures from my neighborhood...I haven't had my camera with me to take pics of surrounding areas in my town, but if you watch CNN I'm sure you've seen them!!