Wrath Of Hurricane Ike

Saturday, September 13, 2008, 1:34pm

Residents of Houston, TX have been in a recent catastrophe as the whole world witnesses of it all. This is a journal I wrote 3 weeks ago and now I have transferred it here in my blog. I wrote this journal after Hurricane Ike battered the city down. Hurricane Ike is actually my first major hurricane. I never experienced anything more like it.

I was lying in bed listening to music in my Ipod. Hurricane Ike just slammed down our area. The hurricane wiped out everything; its damaging winds and heavy rain caused some trees, telephone posts, and traffic lights to collapse and break. I woke up 3 hours after the hurricane. As I looked out the window, I saw strong winds still blowing small and thin trees in my neighborhood. We had no electricity; I'm glad that it was bright enough to write this hurricane journal. The weather felt good, too; I kind of expected that the weather would feel humid and hot. Surprisingly, it felt cool, breezy, and pleasant.

Most of the panic and chaos started 2 days ago before the hurricane. News have reported that some areas had to evacuate immediately. The time struck at 12 in the afternoon. I just went back home from school. The district had canceled classes starting at 3pm. I had to go back and get my brother back at Lonestar College. My mom called me and said that I had to come with her to Walmart. We had to buy food, batteries, and flashlights. By the time we got to Walmart, cars filled the whole parking lot. Everyone rushed to go in and out of the department store. My mom and I quickly grabbed a cart and went to the food aisles. I saw people running and rushing to get canned goods. Every person had at least two carts with them. As I went to check for a few canned goods, I passed by the sweets aisle. Surprisingly, all the bags of sugar and brown sugar disappeared. I didn't know that sugar posed as an importance to some people. As we drove home, we immediately prepared everything we needed for the storm. I packed a few clothes for emergency, and I started to tape down the windows in the house. My parents didn't like the idea of leaving a very little space open for air on each window; they thought water might get in.

On the next day, I charged everything that had chargeable batteries. I checked if all the windows have tape on it, and i helped my parents put small plants in the garage. Then, I headed up to my room and sat on a chair. I started searching about the hurricane. I watched the live streaming video at FOX 26 and its live chat. I saw people from around the world praying for us and telling us to take care and be safe. For the first time, I saw so many people feeling concerned. I participated for a while in the live chat, and I stopped when the capacity reached at around 4000+ live chat viewers. I had to leave because I could barely read any more messages. the whole chat box overflowed with messages that it took a nanosecond for the next message to appear. I kept track on the live streaming video for hours. I found out about a website that estimated the wind speed based on your zipcode. I also saw a site where it had a hurricane radar. I looked at 3 windows at a time, and I was chatting with my friends, too. I informed them about the storm. Some of my friends felt nervous and scared. As I watched the news, I saw the hurricane grew stronger and weaker every 3 hours. I took a quick glance and saw that it was nine o'clock at night. Newscasters reported that Galveston and Kemah were flooded. Wind picked up; I could hear the whistling sound outside. I decided not to sleep because of excitement and worriness. I stayed up; it was 12:02am. Winds got stronger. The lights in my room started to flicker. I sat in my bed and kept typing rapidly. I tried to get more information about the storm.

Time strucked at 12:35am. BOOM! lights flickered and then shut down. Internet disconnected and anything plugged in the wall outlets shut down. I stopped, and I grabbed my flashlight; I ran downstairs to checked where my parents and my brother went. I saw my dad sleeping and my brother eating in the dark. The whole house appeared so dark that I had to walk carefully and tap on the walls to make sure where I went. I looked at the window and saw the streetlights were gone. The whole neighborhood and city was pitch black dark. It was too quiet; then, the wind blew so loudly it almost hurt my hearing. The rain barely dropped because of the strong winds.

It was 2am. My twin brother and I peeped through the window. We saw green lightning and flashes. Transformers blew up near our neighborhood. We also saw the small trees in the other houses slantly stood. We heard our windows banging in the walls like it was about to break. We saw so much debris flying around.
At around 3am, I laid down in my bed and listened to the wind blowing through my room. I could also hear the faint sound of needle-like rain hitting the roof. The storm calmed down for a while. Then, I didn't realize I passed out in my bed. Suddenly, my cellphone alarm woke me up at 5:30am. I could still hear the strong winds and my window banging softly. I went back to sleep and turned off my alarm, but there was still a soft and faint sound in the back of my head hearing the storm slam down. I woke up at 10am. I went downstairs and saw my brother and my dad went outside. I followed them and helped clean the debris that flew through our house. I also took pictures on my cellphone of what it looked like after the storm. I have some of the before and after photos here, too.

HERE IS A PHOTO SLIDE SHOW OF THE BEFORE AND AFTER THE HURRICANE