SURVIVAL IN THE TEETH OF HURRICANE IKE – HOUSTON 2008

My next little story is sure to draw howls of protest from Ron. But, trust me on this, I believe it to be true, just as the voices, in my mind, recited it to me. I can just hear her protesting, “dad that is bullshit!” however, my response is, “so where is your side of the story so we can compare them?” “Then, our readers can decide which account sounds more credible.” The occasion was Houston, Texas, in the late summer of 2008. We were visiting Houston and enjoying our second full year of retirement.

At the same time, Ron had occasion to work out of her company’s Houston area offices. She decided to stay with us for a few days. Her mom had not yet arrived. In any event, that left Ron and I bonding together in a small two bedroom suite in the Galleria area of Houston. It was something of an apartment/hotel, before the invention of the AirB&B. It had two bedrooms and two baths, separated by a small living/dining area.

Shortly after she arrived and got settled into one of the bedrooms, we start hearing about the impending approach of Hurricane Ike. However, we were about 50 miles away from the coast at Galveston, so did not pay any immediate attention to the weather forecasts. Neither of us had ever been in a hurricane, but we had been through some hellacious blizzards. We had also experienced monsoons, dust storms and an earthquake or two. So, I guess I was thinking, “how bad could a little wind be?” I believe it was one day before the arrival of Ike, when she called me at the apartment and asked if I thought we should lay in some provisions. And so started a Friday in September.

She has a small list of things like bottled water, ice, pop, beer, candles, batteries, non perishable foods that didn’t need cooking, bread, toilet paper, and some canned goods. I’m thinking that maybe she is buying into the “hype” a little too much but decide to humour her. After all she was a guest. I hop in the car and head to the local supermarket about two blocks way. I pull up and notice not many others were in the parking lot. “Ahha” I thought, “nobody else appears too worried about old Ike, barreling across the Gulf of Mexico in our direction.” I find a spot to park about 15 feet from the front door. I’m kind of smirking to myself, and feeling a little foolish for letting the hype, get to me.

I go bopping in, look around to get my bearings and am confronted with a big EMPTY store. I mean isle, upon isle of, almost, empty shelves. You could have let loose with a bazooka round in there, and not hit anything (or anyone). This place was deserted. I’m still not thinking clearly, nor is what I am seeing, now, registering in my mind. It comes to mind that perhaps they are moving and I had missed the notice. After all, we had only been there a couple days, so could have easily missed any news of a relocation. I see one lone employee wandering around, so I track him down. I ask “have you moved?” He looks at me as if I just crawled out from under a rock. “Haven’t you heard”? He inquires? I lean closer…….

“Hurricane Ike is coming, we have been sold out of everything for two days now.” “There are no supplies anywhere in the surrounding areas!” “We will NOT be resupplied until after the Hurricane passes.” “That is, if there is anything left of us!” Talk bout a kick in the huevos (eggs). Certainly, if nothing else, that brought me some focus. All of the sudden, I’m thinking that I might have missed something in the tone of the warnings we had listened too. I ask him, “where’s the closest store I can get some supplies from?” “Hah”, he snorts “not anywhere in this city”. I think he is really starting to like his role. Finally, in his little life, he has someone to talk down too.

Just then another guy passes. He listens for a couple of minutes and then tells me to go to the “XYZ” Supermarket a few blocks away. Apparently they still had a few things. I jump in my car and fly out into the traffic. I’m now very focused and on the edge of panic. I shoot into the parking lot and am now about 1500 feet from the door. I get in a lineup to go inside. By now I’m about to whimper. The minutes seem like hours, but I finally get in. I run for the water and luckily was able to secure a “flat”, just before they were likely to run out. I found most of the things on Ron’s list. However, had I been another hour later, I would have had none, and then had to go face Ron.

So, with goods in hand, and a new attitude about hurricanes, I go back to the apartment to wait out the storm. For the next few hours, I am glued to the tv. Apparently, Ron is still not that concerned. She had retired to her bedroom, with nary a goodnight, be safe or anything. I had been left to face Ike alone. Eventually, I tired of waiting for doom to happen. The wind was blowing, but I didn’t feel it was threatening, so about 11:00PM, I give up and go to bed. Funny thing is, with all this going on around me, I slept quite well. Perhaps it was the sound of the wind buffeting our building that lulled me to sleep.

At about 2:00 in the morning, I woke briefly to the sound of the wind, slamming against the building and making the windows in my bedroom shake. Ron was on the opposite side from the wind, so I don’t think she felt the direct force of the hurricane. I tried to look outside, but with the rain coming horizontal onto the window, it was impossible to see. Because we were 9 stories up from the ground and there were no lights in the nearby hotel and other buildings around us, I could not see anything happening at ground level. At this point the power was out in our building. Also as far as I could tell from the window, there was no power anywhere. I laid there listening to the storm and remember thinking, “so this is a hurricane, eh?”

Quite incredibly enough, I did fall back to sleep. And only woke at about 7:00AM to a less violent storm. Somewhere I remember reading, that, about 10 inches, or more, of rain fell in a few hours. Now I could see outside. It was a shocking scene. Between our building and their related hotel, were about 200 yards of lawn. This was now completely under water. Incredibly, the first floor of the hotel and the pool deck were under water. Unbelievably, the entrance way could not be seen. We were slightly higher than the hotel by about 12 feet. The water was covering the patio and lapping against the doors on our ground floor. Perhaps, if I could have been seen, I was probably standing there, mouth wide open and drool trickling down my chin.

Where once there was a creek winding its way along the street, there was now a lake. Absolutely, no evidence that a creek ever existed there! I am half dazed. Time to get up, I think, and check the news. Still partially asleep, and more than half dazed, I step into the living area. At this point, I am hit with another shock. Suddenly I am standing in water. There was water throughout the living room. More amazingly, the hardwood was popped up and warped into 6 inch high waves. Now hold on here! I’m not talking one or two boards popped loose. But every darn board on the floor. Lying in piles.

Apparently, what has happened is that the force of the storm was so much, that it pushed the windows back against their frames, thereby creating enough space for the water to find access to my room. Has anyone ever heard of crap like that? Certainly not me! I had never, in all my years even contemplated water being forced thru a sealed window by the rain. Vaguely, I’m starting to realize what I might be experiencing. And, at this point, I have only been about 5 steps into the main room, let alone outside.

Somehow, I could not grasp what I was seeing. I was already retired by this time, and never in my life had I experienced the devastation wreaked on hardwood by water. Like where do you start? It’s not as if you just pick up a board and lay it back down into place. There were hundreds of them! Each one, twisted and mangled and lying in a wave pattern across the floor. Gingerly, I tiptoe across them and get to the TV to see what is going on. Then I realize, no TV, power is out. So, I think, “I’ll just look it up on the computer”. No power, oh well, what about the radio? Oh yeah, no power. Well I’ll just make a coffee and wait until Ron gets up. Guess what, no power to the coffee maker.

Only then does it start to sink in, how utterly helpless we are without electrical power. I flick on the lights in the hallway to see if they had dropped my newspaper. Oh yeah, no power! Ultimately, what was there left to do? I tiptoe back to my room and lay down until help arrives. Suddenly, I want my mama. And where was she? Sure, sitting there high and dry in Canada. Just waiting to hear from us about the hurricane. I might say at this point, being in a tiny room with no access to media, coffee, warm food, my computer, etc. makes for a pretty long day. Additionally, back in these days, social media was not like it is now. And besides that, my cel phone battery lasted about 45 minutes.

So, along about ten, Ron appears out of her den. She takes one look and then heads for the coffee pot. Oops, no power. She also tries the whole cycle of things, that, we need, to run our modern lives. Having no success, she fades back into her bedroom. Slam! Alone again, and it is about 10:30 by this time. I use my cel too call down to the front desk, to report the damaged flooring, and to enquire as to when my power will be on? I peer out the windows from the hallway, by the elevator shaft. This in order to see what might be happening on this side of the building. Remember, I am 9 floors up, so everything looks kind of tiny. I see what looks like a small tree lying across the entrance driveway.

Finally, there is something I can do. Perhaps, I’ll just bop on down there and help someone, push that tree to the side of the driveway. Maybe I’ll find someone to speak to. Possibly the hospitality area will be open for a beer after I clear that tree? Walking across the lobby, I give a nonchalant wave to the desk clerk. He in turn says, “be careful out there!” “It’s still very dangerous.” I give him my confident look and say, “don’t worry I’ll just go out and help move this tree off the driveway.” He just gives me a puzzled look and then quickly looks away. Our entranceway was about 8 feet higher than the back patio. This side, at least, was not flooded. Yup now for a little workout.

I pass thru the door, onto the stairs and am confronted by a 3 foot diameter tree, possibly 60 or 70 feet long lying across one lawn, both sides of the driveway, and onto another lawn on the other side. Well, it sure didn’t look that big from up there! Like a thief, I just try to sneak my way back inside. Of course the village idiot is standing behind his desk with an all knowing smirk on his face. He has that satisfied look, of someone who has something to tell everyone, as soon as he can. Back up to the room I go. It’s now about 11:00AM. Back to my bed to lay down once more. The storm seems to be weakening now and has settled into steady rain, with only gusts of wind remaining.

Did I mention how boring it is without the availability of electronic devices. I call down to the desk to see if there is any news, on when power will be reinstalled. That fool is saying, some sources report it could be anywhere from days all the way up to six months. Geezus! I know one thing for sure. That is, I will not be there another six months. Although I love Houston, I don’t love it so much, that I would stay there without power. By this time I have called Deysi about 4 times already. Now my cel phone is dead. There is little I can tell her. I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself, when Ron appears, for the second time. “Wanna go for a walk”, she asks. “Hell ya!” I reply. I’m up and jumping around her, like a small terrier.

Out we go. The aftermath of the storm is quite unbelievable. The building across the way from us, is missing a number of windows in its upper level. Quite possibly the same as it would have looked if it were in a war zone. There were some big ass trees laying around. Besides the real big one laying across our driveway. Work crews were now swarming it like an army of ants. We circle around the side of our building and stay on the high bank of the, once, creek that used to flow beside us. The lake around our building is mostly drained by now. Looking closely you can start to see the outline of the creek banks, in the now receding water. It kind of reminded me of someone plugging the plug in a bath. Everything was running down some huge drain, somewhere.

On the street we walked along, it was chaos. Debris was everywhere. Power was still out. Traffic was crawling. Only those with some urgent business were even foolish enough to try to move through the piled up street. In each block, hundreds of ripped down tree branches were piled everywhere. Which also included, anything that had not been previously tied down in someone’s yard was now piled up on the street. It was staggering. Never in anything we had been through, in our years of travel, had I ever seen anything like this. We walked around for a while. However we soon lost interest. Nothing was open, no people milling around. Some sirens wailed in the distance. Otherwise nothing much was happening. I took lots of photos, sadly, none of which I can find now?

Back to our room we go. It is about noon now. I am pretty much bored senseless. Then Ron has an idea. She says, “Dad how about we play a game?” I’m shocked. I don’t think she had asked me to do anything with her since she was a young teenager. Perhaps, she still resented the vehicle episode in Scotland. Remember, I refused to buy her the 10 year old race car, instead I offered her a 5 year old Toyota? Maybe it was some other slight, that she may have remembered from her short past. She was her mother’s girl, and had a long, long memory. Anyway, I’m now pretty much jumping around again. I’m like, “whattya wanna play?” She disappears into the bedroom and comes out carrying a box.

Plop, she plunks her box down. From it’s inside she pulls out two racks holding cards with something printed on them. Two pencils and two printed pads that looked like scoresheets. I guess she needs to build my confidence a bit so she says, “this is easy to play, you should not have too much trouble with it.” Going on she says, “basically you pick one of these cards, and answer the 25 multiple choice questions on the card. Put your answers, either a,b,c or d on your sheet. You have 5 minutes to complete your card. At the end we will trade sheets and see how each other did. Ok? Yeah I’m good. Even someone my age, with limited brain capacity remaining, should be able to play this. Well, so long as the questions weren’t too tough, at least. Without any more info or formalities we start.

She selects a card and hands me the tray. I pull one out, look at the questions and sure enough I see a couple I can answer. “Go”, she says. Ron is now furiously writing down her answers, chewing on the end of her pencil and making thinking-type noises. I give her a little head start and then pitch in. What do you know? The first series of questions I look at, I knew the answers to each. It seems like, the card, I had chosen, or she had selected for me, was the one card that encapsulated all of the knowledge I had left in this old mind. Maybe, it was the seniors card? You know, the one, which the young give us, when they are convinced that we are fading and they need to “provide us hope.” Usually it is accompanied by a look of pity.

Anyway, I plow through my questions and am sitting quietly watching her as she finishes. She looks up and says, “dad it’s ok if you can’t get them all.” “Do you need some extra time?” We exchange cards and turn them over to reveal the answers. Then we start checking them out. Damn, I’m thinking Ron is pretty sharp! In the first dozen she has only got one or two wrong. I peer across at her. It looks like she is reading some of the questions over again, and comparing my answers again. We finish and it is time for the reveal. She asks, “OK how many did I get?” I am pretty impressed with her and say, “21 out of 25!”

She goes a bit silent, when I ask how my scores were. Then Ron gathers up her scattered papers and forms and with a slam, bang, scrape of a chair, she gets up ,and her, and her game disappear towards her bedroom. SLAM, the door closes and that my friends is the last I saw of Ron for the rest of the day. I’m now thinking that there will probably not be a round two of this game. I know, at this point there will be a howl of protest from Ron. She will say, that that is not how it happened! Well, I challenge you, then, too write down your version and we’ll see which is more believable. I remember Desyi saying, as she often has in the past, “JimboRed can’t you just let them win once in a while?” My response, “I was trying too!”

By some miracle, at the end of the day, power had been restored to us. I went down to the front desk to ask why. He said, “Luckily for us, a former president of the U.S., lives in the same neighbourhood as this building.” “Apparently in times like this all efforts were made to normalize his situation as quickly as possible.” My thoughts were, “thank god for that.” I’m not trying to make light of this situation. Because just a few blocks away, in the neighbourhood where a friend lived, his power was out for almost three months. He ran his home from a rented generator all that time. And he was one of the lucky ones. He could afford the generator. Many others were not so lucky, Some had no services for months.

Often I think back on our experience during this Hurricane Ike and realize, just how lucky we were to escape the devastation of this storm. A few days later, after Desyi had arrived, we drove along the coastline around Galveston. This was ground zero of where the hurricane made landfall from the Gulf of Mexico. The devastation was complete. We drove by one area, where, in the past we had come to admire the homes, on stilts, at the edge of the beach. Incredibly, they were all gone! Somehow they had been swept out to sea, or blown inland when the full force of the hurricane hit.

Sadly, our photos of this dramatic time are lost. However, I am going to try to describe a tiny piece of the devastation that we saw. For example, in one place between Galveston and Houston, we visited one small town that was particularly hard hit. The people had tried to remove some belongings from the piles of broken lumber, fallen roofs, and household goods. It was an impossible task. Block after block of houses were destroyed and laying in piles. Things like furniture, clothes, bedding, and mattresses that were pulled out of the rubble, were unsalvageable because of the water and dirt. In some places, all of the trees on the streets had been uprooted and thrown on houses to add to the chaos.

These are hard and resilient people. Many moved to tent cities until their lives could be rebuilt. INCREDIBLY, MANY REMAINED IN THESE CONDITIONS FOR 6 MONTHS! Our tour thru these areas was saddening. Live’s were destroyed in an instant. The government agencies were working valiantly to help. But were largely overwhelmed. The devastation was complete. In my post, I am just showing our own particular experience which was very minor. I am in no way making light of anything that any of the people from this part of Texas suffered, from this storm. We were one of the lucky ones and lived to write it about it later. Many, many more were not so lucky. Shortly after this, we returned home, and have not been back to Houston since. I leave you, here, for now.