Pics of Galveston After Ike

[skipper]

[cracker]

glad to see you made it thru that one. hope all is well with family and property, however if my targets got lost please send me new ones as i didn't do well with the last ones
Cracker

[WYLDRUCKUS]

WOW! we had 50-60 mph winds here in Ohio on Sunday so I could only imagine what it was like down there. glad you are ok!

[Ray P]

skipper..............glade to see you surfaced. Hope all is well and didn't have much or any damage, Thanks for sharing the pics........unbelievable!
Later
Ray P

[Rick in Oregon]

Skipper: I was wondering how you fared there in the Houston area, and hope that you did not suffer any problems due to Ike; it's good to see you posting.

Did all go well with the new home at the lake during the storm? Sure hope so.

[acloco]

speechless. UNREAL!

[skipper]

If you will notice the very first picture is of the Galveston Gun Club. It's hard to see but one of our poles is lying on the pistol range overhead canopy.

Ike hit Houston with a vengeance. Just to the east of Galveston is Bolivar peninsula and Crystal Beach. That is where Ike leveled everything. Very few structures survived there. We didn't go there because another power company serves that area. The storm surge pounded the coast and completely inundated everything. It picked houses right up off their piers and floated them away for miles. All that debris on the seawall and everywhere else in the pictures is what's left of homes and businesses. It took us days to get power back to the island. Even working around the clock and with thousands of mutual assistance crews from across the nation, it will be a while before we get the last customer on.

I live on the extreme northwest side of Houston in Cypress. Houses here received damage and power outages due to the sheer size of hurricane Ike. Ike had hurricane force winds extending out from the eye for a hundred miles. I went outside during the height of the storm and was amazed to see the rain blowing sideways and hearing that howl that hurricane force winds make. Of course I was at work and my family was at home. It's the nature of my job to be at work and away from my family during a power system crisis. I boarded up my house, removed everything from the yards, stocked the pantry with all the necessary essentials and was confident of their safety when I drove away to work. As I pushed the front door open at work to look at the beast I wasn't so confident about my family's safety any more. My parents live on the southeast side so they were staying with my wife and kids. That fact made me more leery of their safety.

In the end we received little or no damage from the storm. God watched over us. A lot of our neighbors weren't so lucky. Just a few doors down either direction there was siding and shingles ripped off and fences shredded. Our power was off for three days. As I am sit here writing this there is still no power just around the block. During Rita and now Ike I felt a lot more comfortable about hurricanes since I moved to the north side of town. I thought we were far enough inland that a hurricane couldn't affect us. Now I don't feel safe anymore. We had hurricane force winds here both times.

Anyone heard from BCB? I think he lives close by.

[Captqc]

Hey Skipper, how did Kemah fair? I used to go to the boardwalk there for dinner when I was working in Houston. Gary

[skipper]

If you're going to Kemah, you better bring your dinner. It's going to be a while before the waterfront will be back to normal.

Speaking of Kemah, I used to live on my 42 foot Catalina (Ruffian) in Clear Lake. It's hard to tell from the picture but she's a three stateroom two bath sloop, rigged single hand and raced hard. I lived aboard her for over 10 years. That's where I got my handle. I'm sure glad I didn't ride out Ike aboard though. That would have been pretty scary.

The setting for this photo is the slips right in front of Willie G's restaurant in Galveston. The Harbor House Hotel is on the right and the Seafarers Museum and tall ship Ellisa are on the left. This was one of my favorite spots to lay up for a weekend. Ever been there?

[Captqc]

Skipper, that's a nice looking boat! We went through the area a time or two but didn't spend any time there. Looks like we should have. Hope they get back on their feet soon. I was just in Dallas and there were a lot of Houston people holding up there. Gary