Chaplains on the River

Hurricane Ike is still fresh in my mind, even though it’s now been over a month since it blew through Texas – and many other states, after it finished up here!  Here’s an account of what it was like in my little cottage in Houston. 

What was it like for you mariners out on the boat or at home with your family?  Please feel free to share your account of Hurricane Ike in a comment here, or in a private

email, or call us at 800-708-1998 at Ministry on the River.

CHAPLAIN PAM’S NOTES ON HURRICANE IKE

Thursday, September 11

The Port of Houston closes at noon Thursday.  I try to buy D batteries at several stores, all gone.  Able to fill MOR car with gas, although the lines are long.  Able to buy a 12-pack of bottled water.  My church cancels its Saturday meetings and Sunday services.  I don’t yet understand why she cancels, but the priest at my church in Houston, who experienced Hurricane Elisha 25 years ago, knows what it will be like here. 

Friday, September 12 

12 Noon – skies begin to cloud over.  Weather already turning for the worse.  Winds are already picking up.  There are reports and video on the news of water coming inland from the gulf, flowing UP the bayous and flooding some areas already.

6:30 pm – The winds begin to pick up to about 30 or 40 mph, and it gets very overcast. Winds increase gradually more and more.  I wonder what it will be like to have these winds double in strength; they are so strong now.

In the evening, I get a call from one of the vessels docked in the channel, asking for prayers for them during the storm.  I had paid a visit this boat a few weeks earlier, and remember clearly our conversation  about their being in Hurricane Gustav and what it has been like for them to ride out past hurricanes, too. 

I watch the TV news non-stop on Friday evening, seeing Ike’s path coming directly towards Houston via the hapless Galveston Island.

Saturday, September 13

Sat 12:30 am – Full force hurricane winds begin.  I watch the radar image on TV and see that the eyewall of the storm looks like it will be passing right over Houston including the area I am in.  The eye itself will be somewhere else, so we won’t get that nice quiet calm time the eye brings with it.

Winds of maybe 100 or 110 mph pummel my small house for the next 6 hours, the driving rain accompanying them off and on.  I am awake the entire six hours, in case any trees were to fall on or near the house I want to keep an eye out, and also because it would be impossible to sleep during the sound of these noisy winds anyway. News on the radio says that Houston is being hit harder than expected.  Ike is so large that everyone is being hit harder than normal for a hurricane.  Many times the winds shake the entire house and I hear things hitting its sides or roof.  I wonder if the roof will blow off.

2:15 am – the electricity goes out (it stays out for the next 60 hours).  I turn on my battery powered radio which, thankfully, still has C batteries two years old, that still work.  Reports on the radio say that streets are already beginning to flood near bayous from the storm surge already the gulf and washing water up the intracoastal waterways and canals.

Saturday, September 13

7:30 am– I finally get some sleep, even though the noise of the winds and the rain is still strong.  The house is still here.  There seems to be minor damage to the edge of the roof, but it shouldn’t leak during rains.  A few shingles blew off.  The banana trees in the front yard have been bent like paper straws.  

My inconveniences – no electricity, boiled water advisory, mandatory curfew for the next week – seem trivial compared to reports of Galveston residents who have lost everything.  My heart goes out to them as I remember them for the coming days.  I think about the mariners who rode through the storm in their boats and pray that they are all ok and not as shaken up as I am from riding out the wind and rain.

 Galveston Sept 13, 2008 - photo courtesy nationalgeographic.com