Read Part 1
About seven seconds after the power went out, my friend's house became an insta-sauna. For those of you who don't live in a humid climate, the careful cultivation of a livable environment depends on a perfect balance of air-conditioning and ceiling fans. Without power we lost both.
So, we had no television, no internet, no lights, and no reprieve from the sweltering heat.
We lit candles and lounged on sticky leather couches, listening to local news broadcasts on my emergency radio and trying not to generate more heat than absolutely necessary. I also kept my parents updated on my status via text messages (which I copied to my Twitter profile so anyone could get a live play-by-play on the storm). Here are some of my Tweets:
IKE Report: Power is out. 9:39 PM
IKE Report: Eye approaching downtown Houston on the East. Life is very hot w/out AC. 4:37 AM
IKE Report: Power has tried to flash on a couple of times. Come on fan, you can do it! 6:00 AM
IKE Report: Main storm has passed. Still raining, still no power. 9:00 AM
Eventually we realized that lying around listening to news was only going to prolong our misery and around 11:00 we went to bed. It took me a looong time to fall asleep. (I was sleeping downstairs on one of the sticky leather couches and though the wind kept howling down my friend's chimney, not one whoosh stirred the heavy air.) I just kept thinking to myself, "If I just fall asleep, it will all be over when I wake up."
But I couldn't stay asleep. First it was the crying baby, whose room was getting even less circulation than the rest of the house. Then it was the sound of my friend's husband laying towels behind the front door and under all the leaky front-facing windows. Then it was my friend running water in the kitchen to make the baby a bottle. (Every time she ran the water I jolted awake, convinced that we'd lost a window and the hurricane-force rains were now showering into the house.)
Each time I woke up I texted my parents (who were sleeping peacefully in their OKC beds) and Twitter, just so there would be a record of my experience, and listened to the latest update on the storm's progress.
A storm in the dark is exponentially scarier than one that passed in daylight hours. Even when we dared to look out the windows, all we could see were faint images of horizontal rain and occasional flashes of light (maybe lightning, maybe exploding transformers). Who knew what had happened beyond the reach of our vision.
Finally, at around 9:00, we all woke up and faced the day. Ike had passed, but there was tragedy and destruction in his wake.
Hugs,
TLC
2 comments:
We had the kids in our bedroom closet and they slept through the whole thing. Dear Hubby would have slept through it too, until I woke him at 3:00 telling him I was scared out of my wits!
That was my first hurricane and I suspect it will not be my last. It has, however convinced me that we will NEVER EVER live on the Gulf Coast. I'm fine with visiting but there ain't no way I'm moving any closer to the ocean than I already am. And I'm in Katy, too!
Thats so scary. I love that you're blogging about this. You see it on the news but you get such a different feeling about it hearing the story from someone who expierienced it.
I live in Canada so I've never expierienced anything like this so I couldn't even imagine how this was for you. I'm glad everything is okay though.
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