Hurricane Ike

[Texasrocker]

I just returned from the northern side Hou-Tx area. I delivered my Gasoline powered AC generator to help one of my family members in the Woodlands area several miles N of Houston downtown area off I-45, along with several 5 gal cans of fuel. Most residences in that area are still without power for over a week now. That whole area is badly torn-up from Ike! On my trip, I noticed heavy damage starting before I got to Conroe,Tx, and it got much worse the closer I got into the N Hou-Tx area!Tree debris is now mostly cleared by residents of their neighborhoods, not all, but a few, so vehicles can pass. Ive never seen so much debris scattered about! Ike hit much harder than any Cat 2 storm that far inland before as I remember in my 54 yrs living in Texas. The folks in the N Hou-Tx area have been thru a few Cat 2's before, and this storm was much different in "magnitude" than originally predicted on local Hou-Tx TV news as I was informed! Recovery conditions are still bad in all the areas. Its gonna be a long time before Houston recovers! My family members endured over 4 hrs of 100 mph winds that far inland, and luckily, minimal structural-damage!! My Family folks dont "scare" easily, but they were worn out after Ike!! I cant imagine the "force" the lower Tx Counties went thru near Galveston, etc!! Next time, my "younger" folks will take my offer to come stay with us in W Tx more seriously !! On my way back home, I started thinking about all our HVRA friends. Has anyone here heard from any of them? Sure Hope, all our Houston vintage-radio compadres are all OK!!??? Some of those old-fellas successfully restored the vintage Radio-Room in the old WW2 era Battleship Texas docked near Galveston a few yrs ago. Any Ham-operators on here? Are you hearing any news yet from our Hou Tx tube radio friends? Just wondering.

[Doug K.]

I also have quite a few family members lining in the Lavaca county area, Hallettsville and Moulton, Texas east of Houston. Any word on how that area was affected?

[Ron Ramirez]

The remnants of Ike did a number in my area also, as it marched through...blowing down a number of trees and things...causing numerous power outages, some of which lasted for nearly a week. I never lost power here, but a lot of people in the Evansville area did.

My friend, Ed Locker in Ohio, also suffered a power outage as a result of Ike's remnants going through his area...and his power was not restored until Saturday evening (September 20).

[Doug Houston]

One of my friends (Cadillac-LaSalle Club) lives in Houston. He was here last weekend, and told that when he left for the wekend, he was still without power. It was a good getaway for him, for it was a celebration of General Motors' 100th anniversary. He's a Mechanical engineer for Continental Airlines, so he's able to move around easily and cheaply. He told that more damage was by wind than by water, but it was a disaster, nonetheless.

Before I had to quit working, I used to get down to Houston several times a year. We'd come into the Inter-universe airport (intercontinental), get a rental car, and drive to Sealy, about 40 miles west of Houston on I-10. One day, they'd had an ice storm, and a lot of trees along the way had been pulled down by ice on them. Everything there looked like it was covered with glass, but the roads were good, all the way to Sealy. That stopped a lot of life in town for a few hours that morning.

It's not cheap, I'll admit, but last year, I had an automatic 15 KW emergency generator installed here. I was able to do it with my IRA. Power had been out for a couple of days, and while I had lots of candles, I need to see in order to just stand up straight. Now, if the lights go out, 30 seconds later, on, they go. If Edison comes back on, the relay box switches over, and you almost can't tell. It runs on natural gas.