Hooray for modern inventions!

I am very very happy to report that we got power back yesterday afternoon! Woo Hoo!

I had no idea how difficult it really is to live without power. We were constantly searching for how we were going to 'survive' the next few hours -

where are we going to get our meals? Our stove is electric and the refrigerator hasn't been on for over a week.

where are we going to get a hot bath?
our water heater is electric too, so we were left with frigid running water.

how are we going to keep our perishables cool?
every bag of ice we purchased was melted in the coolers within a matter of 12 hours.

how are we going to sleep through the night?
the first night was comfortable enough with the cool front, but each night after that became progressively worse, especially for me at 7 months pregnant.

should we suffer through the stifling heat of a closed up house or leave the gaping hole open where our bedroom window was blown out and sacrifice ourselves to the mosquitoes?
all of the windows of the house we are renting are sealed shut, so there was no hope for fresh air or circulation. The only window that is "open" is because a tree branch crashed into it during the storm.

What a nightmare. I am so thankful we only put up with that for 4 days and 3 nights and the rest of the time we were in a much better state in Lafayette.

To celebrate our newfound civility again, we took hot showers, got dressed in some nice duds, and went out to dinner at a Thai place we hadn't tried yet. Ah, it felt good to be normal again!

SUPER BIG THANK YOU to those who helped us out!! -
The Frinks, who were kind enough to clear out our yard while we were still gone, clean out our fridge from the fuzzy scaries inside, let us come over and swim in their pool, and help us set the bedroom back to normal again after discovering all the glass everywhere.

Jenn who graciously opened her home to us for two days for hot cooked meals, a hot shower and laundry facilities. We loved spending time with you!

Bartek who was so sweet and kindly opened his home to us in the middle of the night after we called him at 1 am on the last night without power and asked if we could crash on his floor. The heat and humidity and the mosquitoes were so bad that I just couldn't take it anymore! By 12:45 am we had packed a bag and Dudley into the car and ventured into the city to find refuge. Bartek didn't even hesitate to say yes and 45 minutes later we were snug inside of his apartment with wonderful blessed air conditioning.

Also, thank you Mom and Dad who were so great to have us invade their home for 9 days!! The RV was great and the hospitality was more than we could have hoped for. We enjoyed seeing you.

Special thanks goes to my nephew Nic who wanted his Aunt Natasha to stay in Lafayette one more day so much that he offered to make me an apple pie in return for one more day. How could I say no to that! :) And boy, that pie was yummy-licious!

the cause of our problem

By daylight it is easy to see why we have no power. There is a gigantic tree that got ripped right out of its roots that decided to pull down an entire section of power lines on its way down to a twisted death. I say twisted because that's kind of what it looks like...the 4 or 5 lines that came down are all twisted around the gnarled branches. In fact the residents of the house that the tree fell in front of say they believe it must have been a small tornado that picked everything up and dropped it back down again.
They say they've had the city councilman from our neighborhood out to look at things and centerpoint has been out multiple times as well. All they say is that its a big project...then they leave.
There are people from centerpoint out there now so everyone cross your fingers for us!!!

Houston by candlelight

We are back in Houston tonight and are sad to say we do not have power at our house! We really thought that we could have it by now. With a 30ish percentage of people still out in our zip code we chose to look at it like there was a 70 percent chance we had lights. Alas, no power!

We went to the Frinks tonight to swim and cool off.

Ike Update - Thursday Sept 18 2008

The local Houston newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, has made their website a very useful tool to read about all the efforts going on in Houston after the hurricane. You can see the paper here:
http://www.chron.com

I found a cute article featuring contributions from Houston folk on things like what they've been eating during the power outage and how to keep the kids entertained:
http://blogs.chron.com/weatheringike/living_without_power/

Another gallery of photos. These span from way north of Houston (Conroe) to Southeast of Houston on Galveston island.
http://www.chron.com/news/photogallery/In_Hurricane_Ikes_Aftermath.html

Here is an article from the paper regarding power:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6008231.html

As of noon today, there is 29% of the people left in my zip code without power. The article referenced above says that all of CenterPoint's main grids and stations and stuff like are operational again, except for the one on Galveston island. Now they are shifting to going out to individual areas to restore lines. This will essentially reduce the number of restored residents per fix from the thousands to the hundreds. But, that means progress is being made!

Alberto got the call from his company that they are back up and running again. I have been working nonstop all week from my parents' house on a deliverable for my own job, which bounced back pretty quickly after a few hours of regrouping on Monday. (Since we all work remotely anyway, and we get emails on our mobile devices, it's not like we were at any big loss for the office being out of commission. The only thing most people have had to wait on is power for their computers.)

We couldn't have left Lafayette before now anyway because I've been tethered to an internet connection and phone line since Monday afternoon trying to get the deliverable done. I am happy to say that as of noon today, it is DONE! At least until next week.... :P

So, it looks like we'll be headed home tomorrow. Even if the power isn't back yet, we know it won't be long, and we hear the weather is still quite nice at around 80 degrees thanks to the cool front that came through earlier this week.

I hope to take some pictures of how our property turned out to show how Ike treated our street.

Ike Updates - Wednesday, September 17 2008

Things are really starting to pick up in Houston. I can't say the same for Galveston.
The Mayor of Galveston had instituted a 'look and leave' policy from 6 to 6 for residents who just couldn't wait to get back and see what was left of their home. However, I have heard that she has suspended this.

One of Houston's local new stations has a running blog of all of the businesses that are open - this incluedes banks, drug stores, and businesses that sell food (restaurants/groceries) and ice and fuel. Of course, the liquor stores have to be included too! The list is becoming very long, and I was happy to see that our local Walgreens and Kroger are on the list today. Our local bank branch is not yet open.

CenterPoint Energy's website is back up, and they report this morning that 62% are still without power:
http://centerpointenergy.com/staticfiles/ike/outages.html

They've also posted a zip code breakdown of power/no power, and I can see that for our zip code, there are a total of 5,973 still without power, to make up 41% of the zip code.

Here's an outage map of the Houston area, as of 8:00 pm CST on Wednesday 9/16:
http://centerpointenergy.com/staticfiles/CNP/Common/SiteAssets/doc/Ike%20outage%20MAP_9.16_8PM.pdf. The red areas are those still without power.

Tracy let me know that they got power back at their house on Monday night and were quite happy about that. The water boil restriction has also been lifted, and hot water is beginning to flow into showers again! Small but important victory!

The city of Houston has changed its curfew hours from 9 pm-6 am to 12 am-6 am. The mayor says the curfew is in place primarily for the safety of roads and neighborhoods. This curfew has also been extended to Monday 9/22 (from Saturday 9/20)

Here is a link to photos:
http://www.khou.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=12016&nextimage=0
This appears to be a collection of photos sent in from residents to the news station. There are a lot there, so it may take an extra few moments to load.


It's looking a lot like we'll be ready to head home tomorrow. We'll make the decision once we know for sure that the power has or has not been restored to our house today. Tracy's instincts told her it would be, and I agree. Cross your fingers everyone!

Ike updates - Tuesday Sept 16

500,000 people in the Houston area have now had power restored. I think this means another 1.5 million are left to go. I can't check the CenterPoint website because it's been down for 2 days.

I talked with my friend Jenn last night - she is the one who works for one of the news stations - and she echoed what Tracy told me on Sunday. Houston is not devastated, just severely inconvenienced. Roads are not impassible, and the flood waters have largely receded. They haven't gotten rain since Sunday morning, and there is not any more rain expected for around 5 days.

With no power for going on 4 days now, many people who thought they'd just wait for the lights to come back on are deciding to head out of town and stay with relatives for a while. The same is true for Galveston, which is a good thing because the Galveston mayor has been asking people to get out and let the clean up efforts begin for days now.

Here is a link to a broadcast I found on the internet. This one is not local news, it's national, but it illustrates the destruction of Galveston well:

Galveston mayor: 'There's nothing to come here for'

We are thinking about heading home tomorrow. Will keep you posted.

More photos and video

Here are some new updates out of Houston. Even though the hurricane has passed, the city is still under serious flash flood alerts.

Here is an update on the bayous from Sunday afternoon:

http://www.khou.com/video/topstories-index.html?nvid=282559&shu=1

But, unfortuately, we are having more rainfall through Sunday morning.

Here is a video from the local CBS station from about 45 minutes ago:
http://www.khou.com/video/topstories-index.html?nvid=282625&shu=1

Here is the news report to go with it:
http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080914_tnt_flash_floods.75b2d1cf.html


In the meantime, the city government just announced that there will be a citywide curfew for ALL of Houston (not just areas that were under mandatory evacuation) from today Sunday Sept 14 to Saturday Sept 20 between the hours of 9:00 pm and 6:00 am.

CenterPoint energy, which is the private company (i.e. not government run) that owns all of the power lines in Houston, has updated us with the following:

Houston – Sept. 13, 2008 – As of 8 p.m., CenterPoint Energy has restored power to 112,000 customers, primarily in the western portion of its service territory, in the first eight hours of the recovery effort. Of the 2.26 million CenterPoint Energy customers, 1.99 million are still without power.

The company’s electric system suffered widespread damage as a result of 100-mile-per-hour winds, and trees and wind-blown debris on power lines. Highlights of the first day include:

Restoration of the Coastal Water Authority Lynchburg water pumping station, a major source of water for the City of Houston and other smaller communities in the area Service restoration for one water treatment facility and one wastewater treatment plant in the City of Houston Restoration of service to hospitals such as the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in the Texas Medical Center; Memorial Herman Hospital, Memorial City; and the Heart Institute in Clear Lake City Inspections by company personnel of electric substations on Galveston island, with a goal of restoring service to the University of Texas Medical Branch as soon as possible Company damage assessment experts flew over the area conducting aerial surveys and documenting damage.

CenterPoint Energy crews are working around the clock and are ready to integrate the first of more than 7,000 skilled workers who are coming to Houston beginning on Sunday to assist with power restoration.

Patience will continue to be a key factor. Customers need to be prepared to be without power for up to four weeks and possibly longer depending on the severity of the damage. Customers need to keep in mind that CenterPoint Energy crews will have limited access to some areas due to flooding and debris.

Customers are asked NOT to call the company to report outages, but only to report emergencies such as downed power lines at 713-207-2222.

After Ike

It is Saturday, and broad daylight has shown us what happened with Ike last night.

There is quite a bit of destruction.

Here are some photos that I found:

http://www.click2houston.com/slideshow/weather/17465520/detail.html

And a few broadcasts of Houston news stations:

http://www.click2houston.com/video/17467286/

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=weather/hurricane&id=6375108

One of Houston's signature restaurants for the last 40 years, Brennan's, has burned to the ground after a transformer blew.

Galveston is quite devastated. There are starting to be a multitude of photos coming out of the island showing utter destruction of homes, and severe flooding of businesses.

Downtown Houston seems to be ok, though many of the skyscrapers have been damaged and trees bent over like a blade of grass.

We are still in Lafayette, and of everyone I know in Houston, only one still has power. One friend has said that power may not be restored for a week. However, local Houston broadcasts, which I am reading over the Internet, say that it could be up to 4 weeks. I am sure this is more for the very hard hit areas of southeastern Houston and below.

The bayou near our home, Buffalo Bayou, did breach its banks, though it looks like the water didn't go very far. I have been told that there is no power where we live, much like the rest of the city. I don't know anything else related to damage in my neighborhood.

City officials have been urging people to stay indoors all day today and let the emergency crews and the utility crews and the police get out onto the roadways and assess things. I hope we learn more tomorrow.

Anyone with no power can tune into KPRC (NBC) news on 1560 AM. If you know someone in Houston without power and needs to tune into what's happening, let them know about this station.

If I can find some more photos, I'll share them with you. In the meantime, we are kicking back in the RV in my parent's driveway!

Our plan for Hurricane Ike

Wanted to give you an update on what we are doing for Hurricane Ike...



Ike is pointed directly at the Houston-Galveston area now. I've been watching it for the last 24 hours and it has significantly shifted toward us from where it was yesterday. Instead of being on the outer fringe of the cone of uncertainty, Houston is now in the dead center of it.

You can visit the NOAA website here to see the latest 3 day forecast of the storm:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/143912.shtml?3day?large#contents


That said, Houston is inland by 50 miles. We are well out of range of storm surge, but we will get lots of rain, which will be bad for such a flood-prone city, and very high winds. Last estimate showed winds in excess of 78 mph in Houston - it takes 50 mph wind to uproot a tree.

Houston is NOT under evacuation, but pretty much all of the areas to the south and east of us are. We have decided that we are going to head to Louisana to my mom and dad's house in Lafayette. The likelihood for loss of power appears to be high, and I don't want to be in a position of no power for any period of time while I am pregnant.

Because everyone south and east of us being evacuated as of noon today, we have decided we are leaving today too. It appears that leaving tomorrow would be a waste of time. Landfall is estimated to be sometime in the middle of the night Friday, but the storm is so big we'll be feeling it way before then. Even leaving at noon tomorrow would be too late.

The only thing holding us up now is that as I type this I sit in the Dallas airport waiting for my delayed plane to arrive and take me home. Liz and B are both ready, and they are being nice enough to wait for me! :D

So, that is the plan. We do not think we are taking I-10 East - we will search for other eastbound routes north of I-10 to avoid those evacuees on the highway along the way.

We will return to Houston when power is restored. If Houston ends up not losing power, then we'll just come home!

We'll post again after the storm has passed and let you know how it all turned out!

We are in Houston

I couldn't let the day pass without also updating you on the move to Houston.

Yes, we are here!

We moved the week of August 16. It has been a long and arduous process for us, and I am just now getting my head above the mountain of things to do back in San Diego and here.

Everything got here in one piece, and we are grateful to the army of folks who came out in both San Diego and Houston to help load/unload the truck. We had that monster unloaded in less than 3 hours! Then we started the hateful task of unpacking our lives again, starting with clothes and things to eat.

We are still unpacking, but are fully functional once again in the house we are renting. The mosquitoes are truly a force to be reckoned with, and I have been unpleasantly reminded how common cockroaches are in this city. We are lucky enough to have the flying variety in our backyard, thanks to our next door neighbor's banana tree.

I have been spending almost every single business day in Dallas, so it has made the adjustment more difficult. Unpacking boxes has been a painfully slow process, and I am at the point now where I don't feel like doing it anywhere. I hate that in-between state.

Alberto has gotten back into full time work and Liz has also found a full time job. Dudley has adjusted to the new house, and has even started to 'take ownership' of the front and back yard. Basically, he acts like it's his yard now, not like he's in someone else's territory. He still enjoys laying in the sun whenever we go outside, which is very rare now due to the heat and the aforementioned mosquitoes.

I'm looking forward to fall, when the temps will cool a bit and we can go to the Renaissance Festival!

We miss everyone in California but are grateful to spend more time with our friends in Houston.

We'll be back online to post some photos soon, of the house and also of the progress of my pregnancy (I am 25 weeks this week!).

Leg Cramps!

I experienced my first really unpleasant aspect of pregnancy last night. I was woken up out of a very nice sleep with excruciating leg cramping all up and down my right calf. Holy moly, it was awful and I had no idea what to do.

I woke Alberto up and pleaded for him to save me and he came to the rescue with leg massage and Ben Gay. He knew exactly what I needed to do because he gets the same kind of leg cramps from time to time playing soccer.

However, I was stubborn and refused to stretch out my leg or stand up or walk. I went through 3 throbbing painful leg cramps before I was finally convinced to get up and stand. After that it was a very slow process of stretching my calf muscle, hobbling around, and trying to find the coldest surface to stand on (my 'what to expect' book suggested this).

Today, my calf muscle is as hard as a rock and I am still hobbling around the house. Of course, the baby didn't mind all the activity - he was happily performing a tumbling routine in my tummy through it all! :)