THE VERDICT IS IN....

AS A COMMUNITY, STATE AND COUNTRY, WE ARE SPOILED AMERICANS.

You've heard the saying of living paycheck to paycheck but for the last 4 days we've been living gas can to gas can. Hurricane Ike made quite an impression around this part of the State and even little old Willis took a beating. We woke Saturday morning at 3:30 am to no electricity. So, we went and started the generator and went back to sleep amazingly. I knew there would be plenty to see in the morning so I thought I'd get my sleep while I could. Wes woke up about 7 am and woke me up to come and see the massive power of this storm that was blowing through. The next 12 hours was met with LOTS of rain, HIGH winds and EXTREME coverage on the television of HURRICANE IKE. I will say that it's not pretty in this area and lots of work will be done in clean up over the next several months but you know what? No harm was done to my family or any of my friends and for that I am thankful. My parents did get a little bit of water in their living room and bedroom but my mom wanted new floors anyway. It could have been SO much worse. And if God wasn't gracious enough he sent a cold front through the next day which made no power bearable.

We are running on a generator and therefore have a fridge, television, hot water and fans. We just have to use things sparingly which is a NEW concept to the Schubert family. We had a lot of clean up in our yard and on the street but hard work never killed anybody right? We had one tree fall down in our front yard and one HUGE tree that fell in the back which then toppled on 6 or 7 trees to where they will have to be taken down as well. But again, we are all fine and it could have been worse with the amount of trees around us.

This was the smaller tree that fell in our front yard.

The crazy thing is the lack of supplies because of the demand and no power. The gas lines are OUTRAGEOUS to those gas stations that have one or two pumps open being run by a generator. The grocery stores are being cleaned out as fast as they can restock with things like bread, milk, soft drinks, etc. The real uneasiness has been running out of fuel for the generator. We drove to College Station on Sunday to fill up our gas cans. My brother in law went to Katy yesterday to fill up and today our neightbor went to Brenham after more gas and milk. It really is an amazing feat to see the organization that has happened with the government and within the community. People can say whatever they want about the lack of supplies but it takes time to get all of that stuff organized, sent to the best places and finding people to help distribute and extend a hand. The government told us to be prepared with supplies to hunker down for 2 to 3 days and sooner than 48 hours we had action by FEMA in our area. So my three day supply worked fine and was adequate until FEMA came in and stores gradually started opening on a cash basis only. You wouldn't believe the amount of lineman we see in every part of the city. These people are working their tales off. A recovery like this is a massive undertaking. Unfortunatly I do think we will be without power for several more days if not weeks because that big tree that fell in the back also snapped our power line in two with several other snaps down the line.

I think this power line should be above me not at my feet huh? This was the big tree that fell across multiple trees in our back yard.

My kids think Hurricane Ike is less of an inconvience and more of an adventure. No school all week and maybe into next week depending on when power can be restored. They sleep on a pallet on mom and dad's floor so that we can all be cool in one room and they have lots of playtime. Things are good for them....aaahhhh to be a child again.

Here are a couple more images to help paint the picture....

This was the tree that fell across our road on one side of our house and another much bigger one fell across the road on the other side of our house. All our neighbor men were out with their power saws (I could feel the testosterone in the air) cutting this up so the road was passable during the later part of the storm when the winds had died down. Not sure why anyone needed to pass then but I didn't ask.


These two images were seen all over Montgomery County. Trees that had fallen down on power lines that maybe hadn't broken the line and then these HUGE trees that had been uprooted and laid on their side. It's crazy stuff I tell you!