We survived Hurricane Ike! Ike took a hike out of town but has left a very destructive path. We are very, very lucky and blessed. We were only out of power for about 36 hrs and had only a few lost roof shingles and lots of branches. The section less than a block away had subtantial damages with trees in houses and on cars. They just got power last night, 8 days later! This storm was something I had never experienced and never expected living almost 90 miles from landfall. We experienced 100 mph winds as far as we live. We started to feel the early winds around midnight on Friday, that is when we decided that Allison would "hunker down" in our bedroom closet! It got scarier with every hour. We finally lost power around 3am and the winds kept picking up and howling like I had never heard before..and the eye was still 3 hours away. We had passed out walkie talkies to our neighbors the night before. Our friend Scott gave us minute by minute coverage of how close the Hurricane was coming from his little 2 inch battery operated tv. But as morning came and we could see what the winds were really doing...it became obvious that this was a very bad Hurricane. Lives have been lost and hundreds of people have lost their homes. I set up a relief center for the people in my neighborhood at the community meeting house for those that did not have power. We made coffee and had drinks and snacks. We also had some WIFI service for people to check emails and a tv to watch. I think people were very appreciative.

Hope you are all doing fine!