We survived Hurricane Ike!

Ike may not have been a very strong hurricane compared to others that have come through our neck of the woods, but he left a big impression. My husband and I are
both natives and even though Rita, which followed the devastating Katrina, was a strong hurricane there just wasn't as much damage that I remember or recovery time involved. With Rita, we were only out of power a short amount of time. I don't even remember losing power more than one day. But with Ike, we were without power for almost five days. The power outage reinforced our decision to have a gas stove and gas water heater. At least we could cook and have warm water since our water service was never interrupted. Our phone service was on at first, then off for a day or so, then back on again. I've never felt so isolated before. I couldn't call my older daughter, mother, sister or brothers. FEMA confiscated the cell phone lines for the first few days too, so if your cell was still charged you couldn't reach anyone anyway. Our daughter in another state could call our cell, but we couldn't call her.

The first two nights were so hot, I couldn't sleep, but then God blessed us with a cool front. I was almost at the point of thinking about washing a few clothes by hand before the electricity came back on. Hmmm, seems like I've done that before recently;)

We have friends in Ukraine right now and we couldn't call them or email them to see how their appointment went on the Monday following the hurricane.

One good thing, was that we got to know neighbors we've never met before. People were getting their grills out and pooling their food, that was going to go bad without electricity, together. Even when the lights came on, there were still some neighbors who really liked how things had been and still had their suppers outside:)

Little Miss Karina slept through the whole hurricane! The worst part for her was when it was dark and she couldn't see into every closet. She has quite an imagination.

Another thing that took backseat to Ike, was that Karina has been home for 5 months now!