My wife and I as well as my younger son are doing ok

[scorpion]

Hi everyone!

I'm having to use my Blackberry to connect to the internet. We lost power late Friday night. I have a generator so it is not a big deal except for needing to keep refilling the gen's gas tank. Unless I can find a gas station that has gas I will have to siphon from one of the vehicals.

We lost a small brick wall to the wind. I didn't like the wall anyway. So no loss there.

My younger son who is in the heart of the city, he and his girlfriend are ok and no damage either.

All in all we made it pretty much intact!

I live in the north to northwest part of Houston, and the damage that I have witnessed in this part of town, while it is bad, it is not as bad as it could have been. Ike's center went east of us and actually east of downtown Houston. That is what really saved the city more damage. Just like New Orleans during Katrina, the eye went east of the city then also. I helped work emergency clean up crews during Rita over in southeast Texas and the damage now is nothing like what I saw during Rita.

But I have not ventured over into the areas that were east of the eye of the storm. Those areas have massive amounts of damage.

On Boliviar Peninuslar, I used to go there as a kid and while in college. The beach houses were on half acre lots near the water and 1 to 2 acre lots nearer the main beach road. Most of those houses are simple gone. Not even the pilings are left. It is as if someone when in with a dozer and just pushed them all away. Even the road is gone in places. This is from newpaper photographs. I did have cable tv until yesterday.. but have lost that. My cell phone is intermitent in being able to place a call. Data line function is ok though.

I won't go back to work until Thursday, providing there is water and electricity to the building.

All in all Houston came out lucky.

So far minimum loss of life. Somewhere I read 30 dead. It will be awhile before friends or family start reporting people missing.

Estimated damage 18 billion dollars was one amount I saw being posted. I don't know what the status is on the area refineries. But the would have been in Hell's path and have taken a big hit. Most are under water. Ater the storm over 2.2 million people were without electricty on Center Points grid. It could take more than 4 weeks to get power restored to everyone.

With Rita, some areas were without powr for over 2 months.

Heck if my school wasn't going to start back up on Friday, I would head out to AZ and do some prospecting. I have cleaned up all of the wind debre and there is nothing left to do.

What I noticed that really made me proud, was that throughout the area, people were out after the storm clearing downed trees. Trees crossing roads that were not on power lines, trees from neighbor's houses. Cleaning up the debre from the streets.

No one was waiting for some government agency to come in and clear trees or anything else. People were out helping their family, friends, neighbors, subdivisions and community to get back up and running. There are restaurants giving away food, stores giving away ice and water.

Business are pulling employees from other parts of the state and other states to help during this disaster.

Over 7,000 utility linemen are either here now or on their way to help with establishing power.

It is just a great site to see! So many people working together to get life back to normal!

It makes me very proud to be part of such a great city, state and country.

God Bless the great people of Houston, surronding areas, the State of Texas and the United States of America!

Thank you

Karl

In times of adversity, hardship, tragidity, and great loss; the true measure of a person can be found in the person who has lost everything and he or she is providing comfort and help to another who has lost more!

[Uncle Ron]

Wow, Karl....I'm glad and relieved to hear you and your's made it through Ike ok.....I didn't realize that you were that close to the path of damage...Keep up the good work...Cheers, Unc

[Bandana Don]

Morning to ya Karl: Glad to read you are OK and thanks for your post on Ike damage to Houston.

I lived in Houston when Carla came busting up thru Galveston towards Houston. At that time my dughter was like 4 weeks old and we had no electic power for 2 weeks... without a Coleman Stove and Lantern I don't know what we would have done. My home suffered little damage other than a few shingles blown away. There were lots of tree limbs down in my neighborhood which we managed to cut up. Don't recall the amout of rain fall but it was a bunch.

Don

[DOC]

Glad to hear you are all OK Karl!

Must be a bunch of Conservatives living down there. Imagine, rolling up your sleeves and starting to clear debris instead of giving interviews to the news media asking when the government is coming to fix all of their problems, rebuild their homes, and give them a check and some free government cheese.

Those Texans are made of tough stuff. Once again, I am thanking God that you guys weathered the storm safely.

Doc

[grubstake]

Glad you made it ok, was watching it on Tv, one heck of a storm. God does strange things, You were ment to make it. Grubstake

[shep]

Karl, my daughter lives in Richmond. Talked to her through the course. I was sweating it; she was buying batteries and water and was going to stick it out. She and family made it through no problems.

At least God loves Texas!

Shep

[vini]

Good to hear all are ok I have a friend i'm waiting to hear from she lives in Port Arthur and it got slammed

[montana]

Karl. Glad everything went well for you. I hope you get power soon. I just saw that they got 500,000 customers back on line today(monday), another 150,000 to go.----Bob

[scorpion]

Hi Everyone!

Stores are opening up, restaurants are doing business and even gas stations are showing signs of life. Usually with a line that is a half mile long waiting to get to a pump

I got word this afternoon that my school won't reopen until Monday at the earliest! Wish I would have known that on Sunday! I would have headed out to do some prospecting after cleaning up the yard.

We have about 1.5 million Center Point Electricy customers still waiting on power. Across the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisianna there are about 4.5 million people without power. And Ike didn't restrict his damage to those two states! All along the cool front that is now here in Houston, Ike traversed the country wrecking havoc, death and damage. At least another million people are without power in the Missouri to Ohio valley areas and the Chicago area was alread dealing with major flooding before Ike paid them a visit. They got hit 2X's. As the water was receading from the first storm....here comes Ike barreling from the southwest!

Port Arthur is in a bad way. It got swallowed by the storm surge along with Bridge City and Orange, Texas. The authorities are keeping the death toll very close to their chests. Unless someone reports someone missing, there are people who their fate will never be known. I hope that your relative is in a refuge shelter somewhere and just hasn't been able to make contact with anyone.

I think the spirit of the people of Texas and the country is a can do attitude.

Those who sit on their butts waiting are those who have always sat on their butts! Those people just irritate me to no end. I don't have a problem helping those in need, but I have watched the Katrina bunch be on TV sitting in the Astrodome on their butts while others feed them. One case that I watched was a mother whose child had thrown up. She just sat there and watched a volunteer nurse clean up the vomit and never budged to help clean the floor much less her own child. Too many long term hand outs with expectations of the entitlements going on forever!

Our countrymen better wake up and smell the roses! The DOW dropped 500 points yesterday! The ability of the FDIC to cover bank losses is questionable unless Congress makes changes and puts more paper money in the FDIC coffers! The politicians all talk change, but they can't and won't be sucessful in accomplishing their individual perscribed changes in the time frames they promote. As a very smart friends of mine by the name if "Tex" who lives over in Congress told me recently ...There are rough times ahead! Current estimate on the damage from Ike is 90 billion dollars. That is good for the ecomony but bad for all of us with insurance, rates will go up!

We Americans have a knack for survival! We are like a disfunctional family! Bickering and picking when times are good, cause we are bored! But when the " Shit hits the fan!" We stand shoulder to shoulder, pull for the common good and find a way to fix it!

I love this country and the people in it! Even that asflkasj=kjfopaiue0 women with the kid in the Astrodome! Maybe the child will grow up and break out of the rut her mother is in! There is always hope! If they never went back to New Orleans and she got exposed to a different way of life, Katrina could have been the best thing to ever happen to her! Who knows! Life is still a big mystery to me! I'll never figure out what motivates some people to do what they do or to stay in their level of mediocrity!

I really appreciate all of your good thoughts Grubstake, Montana, Doc, Vini, Bandana Don, Uncle Ron, and Shep! It means a lot to me and my family!

montana, Vicky says to tell you hello!

Shep, shoot me a PM if your daughter needs anything and I will go down there and lend a hand, my stepson lives near Richmond and has told me that my offer includes him helping out if needed.

Vini, let me know if there is anything I can do regarding your friend over in Pt Arthur! I grew up in the Golden Triangle. I went to Lamar Universtiy in Beaumont and I used to work out of the Texaco refinery loading barges for the company that my dad worked for back in the early 70's. But I know my way around PA. Just let me know the details via a PM.

Ya'll be safe out there!

And have fun chasing the yeller stuff!

rgds

Karl

[montana]

Karl. Tell Vicky Hi for me . ----Bob

[scorpion]

Hi Bob!

I told her! And she said to tell you that we'll get together with you in December if not during the summer! Are you still up in Yarnell?

Do you know "Red" who has the claims up off of the old Stage road back to Yarnell from Stanton? I met him when I was at Rich Hill last August! A very interesting person. I spent most of a day with him driving around his claims. I think he siad that you used to hunt up in that area years ago.

Karl