Ike is coming to visit.....

So... it's pretty much assured we will get some impact from Ike. If you go with the NHC forecast at the moment, a pretty bad impact would be felt for our area in Friendswood and the general Houston area. If it goes to our South, lesser of an impact, but still a pretty good impact since we are on the NorthEast quadrant of this huge hurricane. If it swings, as Rita did a couple of years ago, over to Beaumont area, we'll get not much more than rain.

Depending on who you listen to and what you read, there are comparisons of Ike to Carla from 1961 with the size and low pressure that is indicating perhaps more strengthening to come from Ike before landfall. Ike is a large storm and much of the coast will have some impact just due to his general size.

The tough thing right now is figuring out what to do and when to do it. Various county/city officials have called for either mandatory or voluntary evacuations, mostly along the coastal cities/counties and then Harris county called some mandatory evacations as well starting at noon. So, now the traffic has started to build coming up 45 South from Galveston and we haven't even started the Harris County evacuations.

What are we in? Well, we're in the zip code 77546 which was called on the Harris County side as a mandatory evacuation, but the City of Friendswood has only issued a voluntary evacuation. So.... huh??? That helps doesn't it......

Our plan is this: we've been preparing as if we were staying here and riding it out and also packing up in case an opportunity presents itself to get out. We have a lot to do yet - cutting wood and boarding up the house being #1 and picking up all the lawn stuff and finding a home for it. I imagine if we try to get out it won't be until sometime in the wee hours. Right now the traffic is building and getting in it for hours won't help anything.

A couple of pictures - our new generator & the plywood we got yesterday.

Stay tuned!