The Sorensens: Hurricane Ike Update

It is about 1:30 in the afternoon and I was going stir-crazy with the 3 energetic boys running around the house creating chaos. Earlier we went for a walk/scooter/bike ride outside to try and get some of that excess energy out of the boys so I will be able to make it through the next 24-36 hours with them. It seemed to have worked as the house is much quieter at this time. The kids came in the house when it started to sprinkle outside and the wind is picking-up. Nothing too dramatic so far. From what we have seen on TV Galveston is in for a beating as the storm surge was already going over the storm wall, which is 17 feet high. The beach houses on stilts already have water under them and there are warnings is some areas that the water has been contaminated. All the people were supposed to have already evacuated those areas. The good news is the estimates for the wind speed have been reduced and they expect it to be a Category 2 hurricane when it lands tonight.

We still have electricity and we have turned the settings for the air conditioner way down so if (when) we lose power the house will at least be cool to start out. I will update later this evening if we still have electricity. Otherwise, you can know that we do not have any power so blogging will be down.

During our walk there were people putting boards on their windows. We did not do that. I would estimate that in our neighborhood about 10% of the houses have boarded their windows. We are gambling that we are far enough in-land that we do not have to worry about getting the windows blown out. In addition, we do not have any large trees around our house because it is a new neighborhood so we do not have to worry about tree limbs and branches knocking out the windows. We are crossing our fingers hoping that not boarding-up the windows was the best bet.