[Xenalyte]

Houston and Surrounding Areas Hurricane Ike (Peace Be Not Upon Him) Ping List ping!

As near as I can reckon, about four minutes after I added RedWhiteBlue to the ping list, we got knocked offline. Power went out in our zip code right at seven Friday night.

Ike came rollin' through our neck of the woods about two Saturday morning. Man, that was some hard-core wind! The trees outside our upstairs window were not visible.

About six-forty that morning, nature (and Michelob) called upon me, and I got up to go to the upstairs bathroom. I walked through the doorway and was hit in the face with a sheet of water.

I hollered, "Jesus Christ!" and Xena's Guy came to see what was up. His diagnosis was that the bathroom skylight, which we already suspected was of subpar design, was letting rain through in the high wind.

I said, "So honey, why is the witch ball moving?" (There used to be a witch ball hanging in the skylight.)

He saw the essential force of the argument contained in my question, and went to get the broom, with which he ascertained that the skylight was in fact GONE.

Hijinks ensued, in which Xena's Guy spent a lot of time with one foot in the bathroom sink and the other on a ladderback chair, trying to a) nail or b) staple a c) tarp or a d) Hefty bag over the opening. Then he gave up on that, as having the potential to retain water, and nailed a huge piece of Styrofoam over the opening.

That proving unsatisfactory, he waited until the rain elapsed a teensy bit - eight our time, so barely daylight - climbed ON TOP OF THE DAMN ROOF, and found the skylight hanging on by a screw. He reattached it, firmer than before, and all is now well.

We got power back about six Sunday night ... then lost it again at eight.

Now it's back on, and our Internet is too! Doing laundry and dishes right now. It's surprising how much mess two adults can make in less than 72 hours.

Everyone else come through okay?

[NautiNurse]

Wow--major progress this afternoon with power restoration!

Very glad to know you are safe. Your report of the bathroom skylight is way too funny! Welcome back.

[RikaStrom]

Good heavens! On the roof?! Xena’s Guy is a braver person than I.

Still no power in my little neck of the woods. I can repose in San Antonio with the folks for a bit. Until I need to get back to my JOB! :-)

Psycho Girl had a bit of a seizure, I think the stress is getting to her. Poor thing.

RS

[Allegra]

Xenalyte! Great to see you!

Your skylight story is hilarious and I'm glad everything is OK. I can just see Xena's Guy with one foot in the sink trying all of those fixes. How did Salty like the storm?

The Mom, Eaker, humblegunner, thackney, pax_et_bonum and eastforker have all been accounted for. They just don't have power back on yet.

Have you been able to get out and see if Nick's made it through the storm? ;-)

[RedWhiteBlue]

Wow, what a story. Thankfully you have power again, and can start to get back to normal. I can’t imagine being on the roof of a two story house at 8 Saturday morning, it was still TS winds at that time!

Other than losing power (at 10:30pm, but got it back @ 3pm Saturday), everything was uneventful (aside from the stress).

Congrats on getting to the other side.

[Jaded]

Glad to see you back.

[Eaker]

Our power went out Saturday morning at about 4:00am and just came back on at 8:00pm a few minutes ago!

Lots of work to catch up on.

Hopefully this ain’t a false alarm just to tease us!

[TheMom]

Picture this . . . around 1:00 am the storm starts hitting at our house. As hard as we tried we could not stay awake to watch the damage, so we head for bed. At 1:30 our son calls to ask us what is happening with the storm, told him I have no clue because I was trying to go to sleep! We try to go back to sleep (lulled by the strong winds), at 2:00 we hear a thump/crash . . . from what we could tell it was part of the side fence falling. Around 2:30, just at the point of falling asleep, we hear thump/crash/thump . . . . this was the remaining part of the side fence falling. At this point neither of us could sleep, so we watch the FR hurricane thread and the steaming video of the local news stations (our cable went out many hours ago). Beginning about 3:00 am the power was spotty ~ finally going away at 4:00 am. With nothing else to do we head to bed, it was around 4:30 am when I finally went to sleep. At 6:30 am I receive a text message from my sister asking how we were doing (I did not respond at that time cause I was lacking sleep). At 7:30 am I received a phone call from a dear friend that I could not blow off . . . it took me a few minutes to clear my head, but I gave her a basic break down of what happened.

Saturday morning we did our best clear our minimal damage & prop the entire fence line (both sides & the back side was messed up). After the clean up was complete was done we were totally bored!!

We offered our chain saw to one neighbor . . . but found out that one of the strays had stolen & pawned said chainsaw (Gunner ~ I know where to find this scum!)

After 64 hours without power I am a happy person!!!

God Speed to the rest of Houston . . . .