Tuesday, September 16, 2008

After Ike

Jesus Tapdancing Christ, this weekend was stressful. My power went out around midnight Friday night/Saturday morning. My mom's power was restored mid-day Saturday so we crashed on the floor over there. There was really nothing to eat until the Galleria food court opened Sunday.

There's a lot of tree damage all over Houston and I'm hearing horror stories from my best friend (much of her roof is gone, her family has to move out for a few weeks) and one of my co-workers (much of her roof is gone, her husband's business is destroyed). At my old house, the power line post in front of what was our backyard basically broke in half and is blocking the street. The woman across from the house had a tree fall on her garage with her car inside. Nobody has any gas and everyone's car is low on fuel including mine and my husband's. Stores, if open, are bare.

Galveston, Kemah and similar areas were hit very hard. This was just a category 2 hurricane; I am very afraid of future hurricanes that will inevitably be stronger. Much of Houston is still without power. Today needs to be focused on clean-up, not reporting to a job where you can't do anything. The library in my office suffered a ceiling leak so the carpet is soaked and my nose is clogging up from the result of the mold and whatever else is under there. The building next to us has major flooding/roof damage. Some of my husband's family suffered water damage as well. It could have been so much worse and I am so sad for those who lost so much.

For more coverage/aftermath: http://www.chron.com/

It's been interesting seeing the national media cover the storm. Many times Houston and Galveston were used interchangeably. We are two separate cities with two very different effects from the storm. Also, Houston is huge. You can't just show one freeway underwater and have that represent all of Houston....a lot of headlines/pictures made us look like Haiti. It is bad here, but it is truly something you have to be a Houstonian to understand what's really going on. Anderson Cooper was in downtown Houston Friday when the storm started to come. At the time (probably around 6 or 7) he was reporting there was nothing happening yet; everything was calm. The funny thing was the wind was actually howling pretty bad where I was but I think the buildings downtown broke up the wind so you couldn't feel anything there yet. So Anderson was totally not on the ball. Also: Houston ABC 13's Wayne Dolcefino=crazy. Loads and loads of crazy.

We found out our electricity was back on around 11pm last night. I was so happy that I wanted to throw an electricity party, giving away free lightning bolts and shit. I kept thinking that the downside of owning a home was having to deal with all the tree damage that happened. Then I thought about River Oaks and the other rich-ass parts of Houston and realized they probably didn't have to clean up, as they surely have a unicorn dispatch team on standby to deal with any debris.

I would love to see where UH president Khator is today. Probably touring with George Bush over the "devastation". Even TSU which is like, right next to us, is closed today. This Houston Chronicle letter, from a UH law student, pretty much sums up how EVERYBODY who had to be here today feels about the situation.

Even with people running stop signs/stoplights everywhere, and the frustration felt, it is still very nice to see neighbors helping each other clean up, and people posting what gas stations are open. People are really opening their arms and houses and whatever else is necessary to those in need, and that is very comforting.

2 jewels of thought:

Cristina :) said...

Hey Tamara,

Glad to hear you guys are okay and that you guys have elec. power. You cracked me up with the "unicorn dispatch"...LMAO!

Still no electricity in my colony but we are good. Take care Tamara!

-Cristina :)

Muze said...

hey girl.

glad to know you are doing okay.

any time these natural disasters happen it is tragic and unfortunate.

lmao @ I was so happy that I wanted to throw an electricity party, giving away free lightning bolts and shit

so silly.

keep us posted lady.

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