Weeks 38 and 39: Hurricane Ike

Like millions of other folks, Josh and I stayed at our home through Hurricane Ike. We had days worth of supplies and felt relatively prepared. Given how far along I am in the pregnancy, and the fact that my parents live in a storm surge area, they drove up and stayed with us for the storm.

I ended up telecommuting on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, Josh and I drove my CR-V to the doctor's office in the Woodlands (normally we go to the Kingwood location). Unlike the previous appointment on Monday, there was not a significant amount of change, so my OB / GYN advised that I was unlikely to give birth during the hurricane (still likely before my due date of Sept 29). Josh and I both were comforted greatly, because we were worried about trying to get to the hospital in the middle of a storm. We then started to head back but had to take an alternate route due to evacuation traffic. The trip left me with a little over half a tank of gas - which we were not thrilled about, given the amount of demand for gas in Houston the day before a hurricane. My parents arrived at our house while we were gone, so the doggies were thrilled.

Friday was a day of working from home and waiting for the hurricane to come. As time went by, we could see the winds change and pick up speed. I ended up going to bed around 10 pm that night. According to Josh, Entergy turned off the power soon after midnight. What we did not expect is how long the power would take to come back (still has not).

On Saturday, we hung around the house. It was a fairly muggy day. I seemed to have intermittent text messaging access via BlackBerry in the morning, but soon that disappeared. Josh has a cell phone through Cingular, and it was the most reliable of the four phone service providers on Saturday.

As much as it drove me crazy to not be able to respond to work-related notes, I was very grateful that we were all safe, and that our house appears to have no damage. The storm was actually fairly quiet from inside. During 4-6 am, the eye must have passed over the house - there was silence.

So Saturday was very uncomfortable for us (and I am sure also for everyone else without power). I tried to keep myself distracted by walking outside with the dogs. That night I had problems sleeping due to the heat (on top of normal sleep problems caused by the pregnancy). Perry is scared of thunder and lightning, so he insisted on sticking himself between us that night - which meant Josh and I were less comfortable.

The heat was not enjoyable, and I felt extremely uncomfortable. However, I figured that everyone else was dealing with it, why shouldn't I? We had a few days worth of supplies, so we could get by. Unfortunately, Josh and my parents disagreed and insisted we go to College Station - especially not knowing when the power would go out. At first I was very reluctant, but I was outnumbered. We cleaned out the refrigerator / freezer, grabbed a few things (like a few days worth of clothing) and left.

Once I was in the air conditioning in our car, the baby started moving a ton. I hadn't realized how much his movements calmed down when I was without a/c. I then realized that leaving was not being selfish, but more importantly, caring for him.

My sister-in-law was gracious enough to let us stay with her with VERY short notice, especially considering how domineering our corgi can be! We stayed there for a couple of days. Sadie played the role of Investigator, constantly looking outside and barking at any movement (person, car, animal...). We gave Sadie, Perry and Danke (Danke is my sister-in-law's beagle) Dingo bones to distract them. It distracted them all that afternoon - particularly Danke! Staying in College Station allowed me to work remotely, so I could keep up with work while my co-workers without power could concentrate on their families and homes.

 

At the College Station dog park, Josh ran around with the dogs. We met his other sister-in-law based in College Station and her dog, Delilah, there. Delilah is a few months younger than Perry - and is basically a female version of Perry that just looks very different. As soon as Perry saw Delilah, he stopped, whimpered and then ran excitedly to her - it was very cute! All the dogs had lots of fun while there, but none looked quite as happy as Perry did when he was running alongside Josh.

 

Sadie, while not as fast as Perry, also had fun at the dog park.

 

Sadie and Perry both really like my pregnancy pillow too.

 

On Tuesday night, we traveled from College Station to San Antonio. I would still be able to work remotely, and the puppies would be able to stay there if I had to travel back to Houston for work. There was still no power at our house, and the estimated time for 100% restoration in our area was October 5.