HURRICANE IKE

How bad was your area hit?

I live right by downtown Houston, and I got hit by the storm wall. A lot of damage was done to my complex as far as fences and trees go -- a lot of trees were ripped out of the ground because of the high moisture and high winds. At one point, my area was hit with 135mph gusts.

Thankfully, unlike you Suicide, I never lost power or water at all. My water pressure dropped for a while, but that's the worst that it was.

I've heard of a lot of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, which is pretty sad. A few people in Galveston died who were a (little retarded) unfortunate and thought that they could ride the storm out.

I uploaded photos of Ike's aftermath near downtown Houston and my apartment complex, which is somewhat near River Oaks (think Beverly Hills/Rich area in Houston).

http://shardweb.net/ike/

After this storm, I feel pretty confident I can ride through pretty much any storm. Might need a house or something if I want to ride out a category 5 -- but I was fine with a category 3 thusfar!

What part of town do you live in? The entire FEMA thing is kind of dumb -- if you were without power for 5 days, you don't need $2,500. They need to reserve that money for people who had damage to their homes, vehicles, etc. I understand that some of us may need to have money for food, etc, but let's face it -- I think $500 per day for food and shelter is a little unreasonable/over-estimated. I know a lot of businesses that are taking care of their employees -- one of my close friend's brother-in-law is a manager at the Gap, and the Gap gave him a free suite at the Four Seasons downtown (4-5 star hotel). That's not even with FEMA aid, etc. A lot of businesses are doing this too -- not just Gap. The oil/gas company I contract at offered to extend short-term no-interest loans, immediate money if necessary, etc, as well.

In any case, yeah. I dunno. It's unfortunate that the people in Galveston who underestimated the storm didn't pay closer attention to the storm itself -- Ike was a category 4/5 by storm-surge/size, but only 2 by winds. And if you really know hurricanes (as anyone who lives on the coast in a tropical area, should!), you know that more people die from the storm-surge than anything else...