We DON"T like Ike

I've been watching the path of Hurricane Ike closely since it first started to develop over a week ago. Over the weekend I watched even more closely, as it looked like it might head this direction. We had been considering a short trip to Corpus Christi this weekend, but we decided that was probably going to be out of the question, so instead we spent Sunday at South Padre Island. This area is in some ways still recovering from Hurricane Dolly, and the Island especially seems to still be trying to get back on its feet.

And so I keep loading and reloading the Weather Channel's hurricane articles and maps. Even yesterday morning it looked like Ike was going to hit far away, but now I'm thinking what we need to do to prepare. I can't imagine it will be another direct hit like Dolly was, but it's certainly going to make an impact here, if in no other way than to gives us back the mosquites that had finally started to die off.

I'll be happy if Ike doesn't restrengthen, or just misses us altogether, but once again, we're on the lookout.

And lest anyone think the hurricanes are making me dislike where I live, I must remind people of my passionate hatred and fear of tornadoes. Tornadoes give you, if you're lucky, a matter of minutes notice to head to your basement. We've already had over a week to be thinking about this hurricane, and we have a few more days before it will hit. I'll take the week's notice over a few minutes, thankyouverymuch!

Goodbye Dolly

Dolly has come and gone, and we survived mostly unscathed. We lost a lot of our garden - one okra plant is still standing, and the melons seem to be okay. We're going to have to cut down most of the banana plant, trim up the pretty pink flowering tree in the front yard, and just do some general cleaning up, but we didn't suffer any real damage.

We fared better than much of the Valley. We were without power for about 12 hours, without any real problems, never lost our water supply. Others are still without water or electricity, and there are areas with pretty serious flooding and damage. So far I've only heard of one loss of life, from Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, where a man was electrocuted. It could certainly have been much, much worse.

Hanging in There

The first casualty of the storm seems to be my okra. About half of it has been knocked over on its side.

Otherwise, all is well so far. Dolly still hasn't made landfall, but is very close. Rain, some wind, fussy little boys.

We've got water, food, a full gas tank, coffee on to brew and a thermos full already. Now we just wait and see.

Getting ready

We made a quick run to Lowe's and Target for last minute supplies. I'm following the lead of others in our neighborhood as to what precautions we should take - the only windows I'm seeing being boarded up are those with the huge single panes of glass, and all of our windows have many small panes, I'm guessing designed for this very reason.

Eric laughed at Target when, along with disposable diapers (can't wash diapers if the power goes out, and just don't want to have to deal with it right now), I insisted we get wine and chocolate. If I'm going through a hurricane, I'm darn well going to have wine and good chocolate, gosh darn it!

All of Guthrie's play today has centered around the hurricane. Thomas took shelter in the roundhouse for protection from the impending hurricane. His toy taxi drove very quickly out to South Padre to pick up people stuck on the beach before the hurricane hits. Turner is oblivious.

The clouds are moving in, it's getting dark outside, it's hot and sticky with an occasional wind.

At Lowe's, I thought Eric might be a little crazy when his idea was to buy bags of dirt instead of sand bags - they would work the same purpose, but then we could use the dirt in the garden afterwards. There was one other person in the Lawn and Garden section, a woman buying dirt, and it turned out it was for the same purpose. She said she'd done it before and it worked perfectly, unlike sand which just eventually gets thrown out or makes a mess!

Hello Dolly!

I grew up in a land-locked state - Missouri - and, except for spending most of one year in Alaska, lived there my whole life until June 2006, when we moved to South Texas. I've experienced my fair share of natural disasters - in Missouri, an ice storm that left some people without power for weeks, a couple tornadoes that left me shaking in fear in a basement (yes, I have an irrational fear of tornadoes), and in Alaska, a very minor earthquake while eating mediocre Italian food.

As it appears right now, I'm about to experience my first hurricane. Last year, there was one storm (Dean?) that originally looked like it was going to get us, but ended up just giving us a little rain. This time, Dolly looks like she's headed straight for Brownsville, just 60 miles down the road from where I sit right now.

As I type this, the sun is shining, there is no wind, and a few clouds are just starting to appear from the east. I feel totally unprepared with no idea what to expect. We have batteries, we're filling up all of our water jugs we can find with water from the tap (NO we don't drink bottled water), we just went to the grocery store on Sunday and have lots of food to get us through (I think). The gas tank in the van is full. When Eric gets off work, we're going to the store to check for any last-minute provisions.

The prediction is that it will hit as a Category 1, and there are no calls for evacuations, at least not yet. Eric lived in Houston for years, and so he's been through these before, and I'm trusting him on this. Wish us luck!