Not much to tell really. When the weather guys started going on and on about a huge storm surge, and me only living three quarters of a mile from a body of water that hooks up to Clear Lake, the choice was clear: Flee. This zip code was a mandatory evacuation zone anyway so it's not like they wanted me here. Sniff sniff.

So anyway, I headed out of the house on Thursday night after doing some prep work (putting the patio chairs in the garage, getting valuables off the first floor, etc.) since I could see that traffic was light and there was always the chance it could get worse the next day.

It was off to Angela's place near Rice University. She might also lose power, but the threat of getting flooded was considerably lower. Friday we spent the day preparing her place for Ike's arrival and watching the scary reports of Ike's size and strength.

The power went out at about 10:30 or so. We went to sleep fairly early and I did end up waking up in the middle of the night to listen for a while to the radio. Mostly it was people calling in to say how bad it was outside. This did not come as a surprise to yours truly.

The next day, the yard was a mess and there were a lot of branches down, but nothing was really messed up. As the day started to heat up we learned that her sister's place in a high rise had power so we headed over there along with everyone else who knew someone in the building. There we watched the news and enjoyed the sweet sweet air conditioning along with a number of other strays who had left their power free homes.

On Sunday we made quick trip to my place to assess the damage which was far less severe than I feared it would be. A few fences down, a tree that lost a good chunk and bounced off the garage, a couple of areas of shingles gone, and a pool that was a serious mess. But no broken windows, no water in the house, and of course no power to anything.

I called the house on and off waiting to see if my answering machine would pick up. On Monday, it did. Woo hoo! Electricity!

I headed home and have been cleaning things up and creating more pointless web pages. So it goes.

Oh, I also took some pictures.