Ike pics

Went down to Houston on Friday to help clean up trees at my grandmother's house. It had been nearly a week since Ike hit, and you could tell a lot of clean up has already happened. Drove by 3 neighborhoods where almost all of the houses had roofs that were more blue tarp than roofing material. We were well north of I-10---came in 290 and took beltway 8 to the east---so this is definitely the more minor damage area.

On the phone, my mom warned me that this light was "out". Why, yes. If by "out" you actually mean "ripped off by the wind and completely missing, leaving only dangling wires"



Then it was time to clean up downed trees and limbs in the yard. Disclaimer--no one lives in that old mobile home you see.

Big piles of brush the neighbors had already piled up along the road. The piles were this big along about a mile stretch of road



Trees that were completely uprooted. There is a third tree just to the right that had lots of damage, but managed to stay in the ground (I guess b/c it was smaller and more flexible?)



Tree that came down over the trailer. One limb of this one went straight through the roof.



The pile of brush Josh and I built up while we were there. This doesn't include anything that got picked up this week before we came, or any of the small branches or the trunks of the 2 uprooted trees (which Josh cut up, but we didn't move). The stack on the left was at least as tall as me...I'd say these are between 5 and 6 feet high.


Power line sagging over the street and the makeshift "hey, don't drive here" sign someone had put up to keep people away from it. Saw lots of leaning electric poles. Some looked ready to fall at any minute, some had been propped up by 2x4s



Haven't seen my parent's house yet. My mom is staying with my grandmother (there is electricity, gas and phone over there). My parents are in what CenterPoint lists as the "extensive damage" area. Each time a timeline for restoration of power comes out, their zip code is in the bottom group. The latest update goes through next week, and they're still at the bottom of list, which just means, "power restored sometime after Thursday, 9/25"

Keeping an eye on Invest 93 to see what happens there....