First of all, GOOD BYE IKE!
What an incredible, scary storm!
First of all, our prayers are with those parts of the Houston Metroplex that bore the brunt of the storm. We do not yet know the extent of all the damage or possible loss of life. There have been a few tragedies associated with IKE, but not much has been released about actual storm related deaths. The count stands at about 30 right now but that is expected to rise as the rescue crews move through the areas hit hardest by Ike. The first that was reported was a young boy who was killed as his father tried to cut down a tree prior to the storm. There was a woman who was asleep during the storm that was killed when a tree came through her home. And one of the sadest one was the family in Fort Worth who lost their child when he was hit by a car at a gas station as the family evacuated the Houston area...
For the Katy Area, we were lucky. We were able to weather the storm. My family evacuated to Fort Worth, but we know that our power was off for only about 6 hours...heck, we didn't lose any food in our freezer with the power out so short.
We did lose my daughter's swing set. She will be sad but I think we can salvage it if we can get a new bar for the top.
We had a fense that now has to be rebuilt. The posts that hold the fence up are 4x4's sunk in cement and they snapped. Fence cost will be about $800 I guess, if I do it myself, that is.
My neighbor's tree gave way to the storm, but it fell harmlessly in the driveway, falling short of our main dining room/kitchen window (that would have been a mess!)
There is a branch or two that didn't happen to fall but is hanging over my garage, threatening to fall on the garage roof, but I think we'll be able to get that down harmlessly as well.
Our two big trees in the front of our home stayed in place. Other area trees were not as lucky, some of them being uprooted. I'll post some other photos of area damage in another post.
Well, all I can say is that my family was indeed lucky. Many were not and some are still not up and running (some small pockets of Katy still did not have power). I'm not talking about Houston because I have not ventured EAST of Barker Cypress yet, but I know the damage gets more extensive the further east and north that you go.
