This entry has two purposes. 1) To detail what exactly happened after Hurricane Ike, and 2) to realize if you've never been through this, there's nothing quite like it.
I've been through tropical storms and tornadoes but this was the first time I'd gotten directly hit by a hurricane. My family -- on Dad's side mostly -- have been through hurricanes before. They've had beach houses and were devistated. So I knew a little of what to expect, at least on that front.
Some factoids first:
-Much of the city still is without water.
-Of the city and metro area's 5.3 million residents, over 3/4 still lack electricity.
-The University of Houston (stupidly) reopened Tuesday. One building is kind of in a state of serious repair, and two others remain without power/water/both. ALL OTHER ELEMENTS OF UH SYSTEM ARE CLOSED. Wtf, people.
-So far, 17 deaths in Texas have been attributed to Ike. Most of these are actually deaths due to FIRES or Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.
So with that said. This is what life was like during the storm and aftermath.
Many people who have radios or TVs that are battery-powered cling to them like lifelines. (They are.) Normally this time of year is extremely hot; we're lucky temps are in the 60s-80s (20-30ish C)so it isn't as unbearable as it possibly could be. For the lucky ones without power who have generators, there is mild relief. For those without a generator, they're spending as much time outside as they can, where it's cooler than indoors.
A lot of people have no water. Stores are in the area stocking up as much as possible. People are taking bottles to work and filling them up. Those of us who had water were under boil orders until today when it was lifted.
Going out of the house is kind of a production now. While I have power and water, most people don't, and that is a cause of problems. Many traffic lights are down, so it takes a while to get through them (for those who may have different traffic laws, here in TX when lights are not functioning, they become four-way stops). With schools out for the most part, it isn't so much traffic as it is back-up through idiots who cannot drive through the 4-way stops. There are detours for downed power lines and signals, as well as lines for gasoline.
There's a ration of sorts on gasoline. Some places allow only up to x-amount of dollars woth of gas a person, some one-tank fillup per person. There aren't many stations that have gasoline to begin with. The lines can be twenty cars long, in places. These block the right lanes of many streets and are a hazard.
Another place with lines? Grocery stores. These places are scary. The stores, which are severely understocked in most places, lack refrigerated sections, meaning fresh meats, milk and dairy products, and often times processed meats like sausage and hot dogs, aren't available. Also TV dinners and frozen goods like ice cream, pizzas, and vegetables aren't fo sale yet. By now some stores have safe-to-sell foods in these categories and have resumed selling them. Eggs are also hard to come by, as are bottles of water in many places. I have heard stores making some limits on particular groceries but those vary around town. The time you wait in line to enter the grocery store varies too, depending on how popular a store it is or how popular the area is for those travelling through.
Stores like Walgreens and CVS, when open (all are limited hours, even the typically-24-hour ones) are wonderful substitutes. The city of Houston has a curfew of midnight that all people excluding police and paramedics must be off the streets by then. Until yesterday that time was 9:00 P.M. until dawn. Currently it's running Midnight to 6 A.M. Buses are running limited services but many routes are resuming their normal rides.
Downtown has been closed off in some areas for clean-up. Residents weren't allowed in to survey damage for fear of injury from broken pieces of building and glass, also things like computers that have flown through windows are a danger. This may be changing due to commute necessity.
Businesses in many places are at a stand-still due to lack of power and water. Many schools are shut down until Monday (Houston Independent School District is notorious for not closing down for things like severe mold infestations. They shut down for the week.) while universities such as UH opened up bright and early Tuesday morning.
It's not safe by ANY means for these students to be here, but what can I do except be supportive. Many are here because they lack power at their homes to take care of things like charging their cellular phones. Others, with no water, need to be here so they can take showers at the campus recreation center. Many are returning to class -- to those who are holding it. Due to campus closing early for the city curfew, many night classes aren't in session. Some professors had no way to get to campus and their classes are cancelled. Some tried to alert their students to the fact they chose not to hold class and the students didn't get the message due to a lack of power.For UH at least, classes aren't being counted toward absences this term.
I work as a secretary for the law school. Being here, I have a suite of ten professors I work with. One hasn't come into the office yet, and it's possible she's flooded in or has severe flood damage. Others (about half) have no power or water at home. One's a commuting professor from NC, and he's had flight delays. Everyone has a story to share about how the yards around them are messed up and how these neighbors lack power.
Law students are complaining about how it takes so much gas to get out here (UH and UHLC is a commuter campus. Most people do NOT live on or near the campus, like me for example), and the shortages of it around town. A lot of students are concerned about missing classes because of the attendance policies, and even if not that they don't want to miss else they fall behind in their classes.
It's a little scary. I come home each day wondering if we're going to suddenly lose power or water, if we're going to have a leak in the roof or something, if everyone I know in other parts of town is still OK.
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I'm leaving this entry unlocked, unlike most of my entries. Feel free to link this to your friends who wonder what it's like after a hurricane.
Here are a list of links that are important to us right now.
http://blogs.chron.com/weatheringike/living_without_power/http://www.chron.com/ (Houston Chronicle newspaper)
http://www.khou.com/ (Local Houston news coverage)
http://blogs.chron.com/closings/openings/ http://www.chron.com/databases/ikegas.htmlhttp://blogs.chron.com/hurricanes/traffic/http://www.chron.com/databases/ikepods.html (POD = Point of Delivery. Places for those displaced to get food and water.)
Any Houstonians with better links, feel free to comment and I'll add them.
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2008/09/back_to_school_at_university_o.php And this gem, which I must share, about our UH president. Or something.
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