Well we have a toddler and newborn and no close family. We decided if we had to leave to a hotel for 5-7 days at at least 100 bucks a night----well we might as well do a generator. So he's off the fight the crowds at the home stores in hopes of one up to 1000 bucks but no more. Wonder how much power that'd give us?
Hurricane Ike Watch
It sounds like it's enough to run a refridgerator and a fan.
so the mad dash has started then?
A small geneerator will run your refrigerator, a fan and a small tv. Perhaps a small window unit ac but that would be iffy with all of the other things plugged into it. Houston is pretty good about getting power back up quickly but there's always that small chance it could be down for more than 24 hours. With the little ones, I think it would be a wise expense. Besides, after tomorrow, finding a hotel room farther inland might be a losing battle.
I'm a native and the worse I've seen was Alicia back in the 80's. Our power was only down for about 12 hours. We were pretty lucky. Since ya'll are NW, you'll get some hard rains and possibly damaging winds.
Randy, don't blame you a bit. Stay home and have a hurricane party. Every time the forecaster says 'cone of uncertainty' or 'wobble', everybody scream. Just kidding. Well, no, I'm not. We did it. (anyone familiar with Dr. Neil, during Rita, or the other forecasters down here will understand).
well according to that blog, Rita was doing the same thing, then it upswung so far that it even passed us a bit.
Here I am 220 miles away from you and am anxious as the devil. This just can't keep happening. I guess we will be moving somethings up a little closer tomorrow just in case we get wind. I know it won't be like what the rest of you are expecting but won't take much to break the best of my tropicals. And then that is not the worth the effort when I think of the danger those of you may be in.
Pray God holds you in the palm of His Hand.
PK
Yup....we didn't get a drop from Rita ad this place was a ghost town. It was a little scary.
Thanks, Lou!
The only real fear I have are the electrical pole in my yard and the old pecan trees next to me. Oh, and the cats being trapped inside for 2 days. They are going to be soooooo mad.
I pray for those closer to the coast.
Well no surprise, HD and Lowe's were both out LOL. DH wondering if should get a big cooler and ice tomorrow but we'll see. I'm really not that concerned. But I'm from the north and never lived through a hurricane so what do I know!?
Well, remember our Parents saying.
Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best!
San Antonio is prepared for at least 20,000 evacuees. We're being warned to expect very strong winds and possibly tornados. Rain, too, which we can really use, but flooding is expected in many areas. Not looking forward to the weekend!
Yuska
My family is an hour south of us here---they are concerned we aren't evacuating. We aren't in a flood plain. But I'm not sure how bad are they saying Ike will be for Houston?
It sounds to me that we're all going to feel some effect. I think we'll know more tomorrow morning
TNN - I'm confused......if they're an hour south, do you mean directly south of NW Houston? That puts your parents closer to the possible damage and they should be staying with you. LOL.
Cross-posts!
Yes, I think we'll know more tomorrow. We're far enough inland that it's not a panic situation. TG!
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1079&tstamp=200809
just thought I would share this
We are concerned enough to stock up on non-cooking foods, like dry cereal and canned fruit. (DH is at the grocery now.) But not panicking. :-) The map has moved the storm even farther north this evening, which is not good. But, as Randy said, Rita did the same thing and then ended up passing us by and hitting Beaumont. (Not that that was a good thing either!)
We do not have a generator, Tir, but we probably would have gotten one if this had come through while the bunnies were babies. Tropical Storm Allison came through just a couple of months after the little bunny was born, so we have seen how our neighborhood does with lots of rain (just fine, no flooding at all.) We haven't seen hurricane force winds, though, and what I am most worried about are all of the HUGE trees in our neighborhood and yard. We have 2 full-grown pecans, 2 magnolias and a hackberry. A neighbor on one side has a HUGE oak and the neighbor on the other side has a HUGER ash.
The noon news latest had Ike's eye going almost directly overhead and warmings of Category 2 hurricane winds well into Fayette County. So we went grocery shopping and moved cattle to a different pasture and higher ground. Got back inside just in time to hear that Ike's landfall had moved east. If that prediction holds, we'll still get lots of rain and high winds, but nowhere near hurricane strength. At least now we are prepared. If it moves any more, we'll be on its dry side and not get any relief from this year's drought. We were in a worse drought when Rita struck. Rita sent us even drier winds making matters worse.
No matter where we are in the area of about 1000 miles (give or take) it looks pretty bad if only on the nerves. I am not the worrier in this family - DDH is and he is welcome to the job. I am the calm one We are not like the ant and the grasshopper, tho. We are both like the ant so that when we get our work done we can sit back and relax. Our 5 grown kids and their families live in Harris County and just over the line into Fort Bend so we all have support and boy can we party. If the freezers fail then we'll have a gigantic bbq and invite the neighbors who will bring the "good" stuff for drinking. The way I figure it is that worry does nothing but wear you out and doesn't accomplish anything. Thinking objectively accomplishes everything. Thinking subjectively makes you have a good time while you are doing other things. We haven't sold our former residence so we have a place we can go if necessary to get out from under whatever. Lets hope for the best for not only ourselves but others, too. Who knows? maybe Ike could decide to go to sleep and go away. Oh well.....Safe landings, everyone.
Ann
Well, I'm worried and praying...my daugter and granddaughter are in the Freeport area between richmond and Angleton...
"eyes"
It's looking pretty definite. I just heard all of Galveston - not just west end is under mandatory evacuation. God Bless everyone! So far the roads are moving well all through Houston - hoping for that to stay ok.
Greetings from New Braunfels. Just wanted to let y'all know that there are evacuation centers here, also. My daughter's Middle School (Churh Hill Middle) and two elementary schools have told the kids to stay home to make room for evacuees. Also our church, Tree of Life, on 35, just south of NB is making room for evacuees. If anyone needs more info, I'll be watching this thread and my Dmail. We are all praying!
I guess the key is to prepare according to whatever accurate projections you have now. Just remember, Ike is still way out in the Gulf, a very long way from the coast...that's still quite a distance. Look at spaghetti models, because nobody can know exactly where it will hit right now. I've seen it before....it can turn...prepare, but don't lose your heads. Some idiots on San Antonio TV yesterday were putting out stuff that just wasn't accurate or likely. I was in San Antonio (just getting groceries, not stocking up for a disaster like many people were) and I saw it...people were just plain losing their common sense. I've lived in this area for a long time (don't want to say how long...but I am not young) and there is no way people need to evacuate that city for a hurricane...never has been in my lifetime. That's all BS. The only time in my lifetime I've ever evacuated our house was when I lived in Pasadena, Texas as a child. And then we just walked through flood waters to a local school to stay...back then people didn't usually go far. We had some flooding in my area last year because of the remnants (storms) of a hurricane. Flooding here just requires that you use common sense.
I hear ya LindaTX8. You should have seen the grocery stores in NB last night. There wasn't a banana to be found and lots of other empty shelves. I wondered why everyone here is stocking up, unless they are afraid we'll have a lot of evacuees in the stores buying and they wanted to get there first! I hope not, what a shame. Of course, as late as yesterday, there were reports of flooding and 60-100 mile and hour winds possible in San Antonio! We'll just keep watching.
Isn't that funny? My dh went shopping last night, and had no trouble finding bottled water or anything. So the stores in NB and SA are empty, and the stores in Houston are fine. Of course, maybe they've been stocking our stores instead of your stores in anticipation of this. That would be VERY wise on the parts of the grocery people!
Just heard that my brother's county (Brazoria) is under a mandatory evacuation order now. I'll have to go check that out. DD and my sister are in Houston.
The stores in Sugar Land aren't fine today. I couldn't even find a parking spot at Kroger's. All I needed were paper plates. I went to HD to see if I could find a lantern and the line for the generrators went from te register, all the way down to the entrance of the store, turned and went all the way to the back of te store and turned again. It looked like the first 100 people had generators, everyone else just had gass cans. I took a picture with my cell phone because I've never seen anything like it. They didn't have a lantern so I turned around and came on home. Highway 6 is already congested with folks evacuating so, I'm staying off the road so they can get where they're going.
Linda - the roads seem to still be moving fine. They're telling everyone to shelter in place if you're not in a mandatory evacuation area, so that's keeping many people off the roads. None of us want to relive the Rita evacuation nightmare. Good luck to your loved ones here.
Thanks for the update. Kristi.
The groceries in central/SW Houston are busy, but still have water, fruit, etc. I just got back from buying batteries at Radio Shack, and they're very busy.
I'm at my destination. Furry four legged children are safe & settled.
Storm moved north, but I'm a huge chicken. Storm winds expected still at my house, not taking any chances...
Safe & settled. Now it's sit & wait. I'm no good at patience.
DH got to our small Sears hardware at 7:45 am to get his golden ticket LOL for one of 13 generators they had trucked in this morning. DH was number 10. He said there were 9 others behind him by 8 when the store opened. And probably 30 more cars had pulled up when he was leaving.
But we got our generator. It's enough to run our AC unit and fridge up to 10 hours per day on 4 gallons of gas. So that'll do.
Then we went to Walmart. We got a spot up close out of luck thank goodness and filled 2 carts of stuff but mostly it was buying out the last of the gas cans (spare for the generator) we got 5 of the huge gas cans, bags of charcoal and then some food.
The lines were long but surprisingly it didn't take any longer to get in and out than normal LOL!!!! Their gas price raised 2 cents while we were in the store but still almost 20 cents cheaper than the station on the corner.
Knolan, yes in laws are hour south but there are a lot of them and they all had another destination to go to. Should we have to go we have family in NB and would go there but are anticipating staying put.
I suspect people in the outlying areas are stocking up before the evacuees come and wipe everything out. That happened for Rita, locals in many of those areas were surprised when they couldn't find bread and milk and... just about anything.
My office is on the Northbound feeder of I-45 just North of The Woodlands. Traffic is slow and extremely heavy, but moving smoothly. I only have to go 10 miles north to get home, but expect it to take awhile this evening!
I took a friend to the airport this morning before work and took the opportunity to pop in to Krogers. There were only a few more people than usual, but we were all getting water, etc. Shelves were well-stocked and there were large displays with water. That was 6:30am.
Okay. My brother in Angleton is boarding up the windows on the house and is going to leave with his wife and two grown daughters today. It's a mandatory order for that whole county. Funny thing is, they just recently got back from the Waco area where SIL's mother lives...and now they packing up to go back.
I am in the Brazoria, Sweeny area in Brazoria County and live about one mile from Matagorda County. It is a very rural neighborhood with mostly acreage and livestock. We have livestock on ours as well as all my plants and trees. I think we are the only ones left in my neighborhood as we had a mandatory evacuation this morning. Matagorda Bay is about 25 miles from us and we usually get all the wind from it due to all the open pastures. DH and I are going to weather this one out. I have spent Monday beginning to move my plants to protected areas and just finished up about noon. Got the house windows and doors boarded up and the garage doors will be boarded up tonight. We have the gas tanks filled, plenty of drinking water and containers to catch the rain for flushing. Every time we have a storm we loose the power. Not only do we not have any lights, but no water. I have prepared several times this season so I already had my emergency supplies. After living on the coast all your life you just go into automatic drive when mention of the possiblity of a storm comes up. DH decided to go into town about 11:00 this morning to pick up one more thing he thought was essential. In no time he came back as every store in Sweeny was closed and boarded. I probably will not be able to get on line after tonight but will update on local damage when able.
As I go about the routine of preparing, I know that all is well and everyone in the path will be safe.
You're in my prayers, Susie! Take care.
Kristi
Susie, you're making me pretty nervous. I think I'd leave if I were you.
I logged on because I just can't figure out what to do with everything in the yard. I can put the smaller plants and some of the hanging ones in the shed. I was thinking that I'd put a chain around the metal patio furniture and chain them to the willow oak. (The willow oak has a huge branch that hangs over the entire house that will probably fall and kill me, so this whole preparation is probably mute.)
I'm planning to leave the cast iron furniture where it is. Do I need to worry about it?
What about garden ornaments like ceramic mushrooms, gnomes, statues? I have a lot of those, a lot. Do I really have to kill myself finding somewhere to put them? If they are small and low to the ground will they be OK?
What about pillar trellises? They're not going to rip out of the ground -- are they? Last I heard my area could have winds of 110 mph or more. Does anyone remember Carla? If so, what heavy things blew around that you didn't expect?
I'd appreciate your thoughts b/c I'm just at a total loss.
My tomatoes might be toast. Film at 11.
I figured everyone would take a half day off today. It's complete bedlam and chaos here...lines for gas are into the roadways and the stores are mobbed.
IAH will be closed at 2pm tommorrow...no flights in, no flights out. We are busy ferrying aircraft out of town.
Elphaba - Sorry to say....I moved all my mushrooms, gnomes, solar lights, birdhouses, and bird baths into the garage. Better to be safe than sorry. Those little things can become missiles into your windows.
I would move them, too, Terri. We're going to take down ours tonight.
Elphaba, There isn't much that can withstand 110 mph if it isn't tied down or stowed. Once airborne, they can become missiles. Is it possible to get them at least into the lee side of the house?