Don't you love all of that hurricane vocabulary! Words/phrases like cone of uncertainty, hunkering down, storm surge, eye wall, "Cat" 2 , millibars,etc are all part of our conversations nowadays!
Well, the Rainey family is settling in for a long stormy night, thanks to Hurricane Ike! It's after 9:00 pm on Friday night. We woke to a sunny day that soon turned blustery and overcast but things haven't looked that unusual until a few hours ago. By then, some clouds were looking a little different and the gusts of wind were a bit more than usual. We have had no rain though and still have electricity (obviously, duh!). We expect to wake up to a different situation!
It's been an interesting turn of events, these last few days. While Ike has been churning around in the Gulf for a while now (back when we were still watching out for Gustav, Hannah and Josephine) it wasn't predicted to go into Houston until Wed. evening. Everywhere from Florida to Louisiana to Mexico has been in the "cone of uncertainty" and it's just been a wait and see situation.
By Thursday everyone seemed to accept that Ike was heading straight for us. It's been weird watching the transformation of the city. The normal "God-awful" traffic into town was quite light and the north-bound lanes were congested with cars, people pulling boats and buses filled with evacuees. After driving the carpool kids into Lauren's school I had a bit of time before a doctor's appt. I decided to get some new flashlights and extra batteries. As I walked into the Target store you could feel the tension and anxiety in the air. People were pushing their carts at record speed and sales personnel with baskets of DD batteries and cases of water soon had movie star status, with dozens of people standing around, reaching out their arms to them. I managed to get 3 packages of batteries and had to buy orange and black flashlights from the Halloween section because all others were gone. Filling up my car with gas was a bit of a hassle but I managed to get it done too.
I did our weekly grocery shopping on Wed. morning, when we thought the storm was hitting somewhere around Corpus Christi (we might get a bit of rain from that) and bought our usual foods - lots of fresh fruits and veggies, 1% milk, lowfat choc. soy milk, whole wheat pasta, etc. That healthy eating went right out the window by yesterday! While at Target, I decided to buy some more non-perishable canned goods that we could heat up on our gas stove when our power goes out. So back to the Spaghettio's we go. I also bought Coke, puffy Cheeto's and blueberry poptarts. Yea, yea, I know we should be fine with the plums and choc. soy milk but who wants to eat that when you're hunkered down in the house for 3 days. Let's live a little, huh!!! Here's to comfort food! When talking to my sister yesterday she mentioned that she was going to buy a bottle of wine. She told me that the line to check out at Spec's Liquor was longer than the line at the grocery store!!!
This morning, my friend Diann and I were dying to get together for coffee. Like I said earlier, the weather was fine, so I picked her up and we tried to go to Starbucks but they were all closed. We picked up taquitoes and coffee at Whataburger and went to eat and talk at the park. We had a great time venting to each other before we had to spend the next 3 days trapped inside our homes. On the way home, I realized that it looked like a ghost town around here. Gas stations were empty because their tanks were empty, almost all stores were closed (some even boarded up) as were all schools in the area. Very few houses around us are boarded up, although 3 just on our small street are boarded up tight. You turn on the TV and all you see are reporters wearing raincoats with their channel's logo on the pocket (they all seem to wear baseball caps as well, logo intact) reporting non-stop on the flooding that began before dawn this morning in Galveston, showing the inevitable palm tree blowing in the wind, etc.
I don't know, but I'm just not that freaked out about the storm . I just don't scare that easy. Hey, that's a benefit from having my weekly crisis situations with my parents!!! Ike Shmike - that's nothin' compared Hurricanes Judy and Joe!!!
Well, the Rainey family is settling in for a long stormy night, thanks to Hurricane Ike! It's after 9:00 pm on Friday night. We woke to a sunny day that soon turned blustery and overcast but things haven't looked that unusual until a few hours ago. By then, some clouds were looking a little different and the gusts of wind were a bit more than usual. We have had no rain though and still have electricity (obviously, duh!). We expect to wake up to a different situation!
It's been an interesting turn of events, these last few days. While Ike has been churning around in the Gulf for a while now (back when we were still watching out for Gustav, Hannah and Josephine) it wasn't predicted to go into Houston until Wed. evening. Everywhere from Florida to Louisiana to Mexico has been in the "cone of uncertainty" and it's just been a wait and see situation.
By Thursday everyone seemed to accept that Ike was heading straight for us. It's been weird watching the transformation of the city. The normal "God-awful" traffic into town was quite light and the north-bound lanes were congested with cars, people pulling boats and buses filled with evacuees. After driving the carpool kids into Lauren's school I had a bit of time before a doctor's appt. I decided to get some new flashlights and extra batteries. As I walked into the Target store you could feel the tension and anxiety in the air. People were pushing their carts at record speed and sales personnel with baskets of DD batteries and cases of water soon had movie star status, with dozens of people standing around, reaching out their arms to them. I managed to get 3 packages of batteries and had to buy orange and black flashlights from the Halloween section because all others were gone. Filling up my car with gas was a bit of a hassle but I managed to get it done too.
I did our weekly grocery shopping on Wed. morning, when we thought the storm was hitting somewhere around Corpus Christi (we might get a bit of rain from that) and bought our usual foods - lots of fresh fruits and veggies, 1% milk, lowfat choc. soy milk, whole wheat pasta, etc. That healthy eating went right out the window by yesterday! While at Target, I decided to buy some more non-perishable canned goods that we could heat up on our gas stove when our power goes out. So back to the Spaghettio's we go. I also bought Coke, puffy Cheeto's and blueberry poptarts. Yea, yea, I know we should be fine with the plums and choc. soy milk but who wants to eat that when you're hunkered down in the house for 3 days. Let's live a little, huh!!! Here's to comfort food! When talking to my sister yesterday she mentioned that she was going to buy a bottle of wine. She told me that the line to check out at Spec's Liquor was longer than the line at the grocery store!!!
This morning, my friend Diann and I were dying to get together for coffee. Like I said earlier, the weather was fine, so I picked her up and we tried to go to Starbucks but they were all closed. We picked up taquitoes and coffee at Whataburger and went to eat and talk at the park. We had a great time venting to each other before we had to spend the next 3 days trapped inside our homes. On the way home, I realized that it looked like a ghost town around here. Gas stations were empty because their tanks were empty, almost all stores were closed (some even boarded up) as were all schools in the area. Very few houses around us are boarded up, although 3 just on our small street are boarded up tight. You turn on the TV and all you see are reporters wearing raincoats with their channel's logo on the pocket (they all seem to wear baseball caps as well, logo intact) reporting non-stop on the flooding that began before dawn this morning in Galveston, showing the inevitable palm tree blowing in the wind, etc.
I don't know, but I'm just not that freaked out about the storm . I just don't scare that easy. Hey, that's a benefit from having my weekly crisis situations with my parents!!! Ike Shmike - that's nothin' compared Hurricanes Judy and Joe!!!
