Hurricane Ike -All safe!

[ILoveMyAbbyGirl]

Check in soon, Cori. =[ We love you!

[molucass]

This is the first time I have had access to a computer.. Our power finally came back on after a week or so, but we still had no phone, internet, or cable.. Today is the first day they turned that back on.

My parents house has A LOT of roof damage. The ceiling in my sister room collapsed, and we are just waiting for it to collapse in my parents room as well.. The front bathroom was leaking, and ALL of the bedrooms were leaking. My niece's room started midewing just a day or two after the storm..
The night/morning of the storm I didn't get any sleep. My room is upstairs, and I just sat up there listening to the roof come off, and tornadoes roaring around out there.. Thankfully the tree we thought for sure would fall on our house didn't fall at all. It was coming out of the ground.. Moving up and down, and now you can see the roots. Our air conditioner didn't work after the power finally came back on, so we are still as hot as we were with no power, but we are all ok, and all of our pets are safe.. So that is the most important thing.

My dad has a shop over at the house we are supposed to move in to, and we put our car in there thinking it would be safer. My mom has lived here all of her life, and its never flooded where that house is... The shop is on the lower part of the land, so thankfully the shop was the only thing that flooded. The house had no damage what-so-ever. We had 4 ft. of water in the car... The car is completely totaled, and a lot of stuff that we had stored in the trunk is also ruined.

We were able to survive on a generator.. It was a small one though, so we could only run the fridge, 2 freezers, and a couple fans.

Before we got our power back on, we stocked up on water (also some of my moms friends gave us some), ice, & MRE's from various people offering them to people who needed them.. But our boil-water notice was lifted, so I donated all but 2 of the tons of cases of water to our local humane society, which is in Beaumont where the boil-water was lifted just a couple of days ago.. I donated at least 15 cases of water, and a couple of jugs of water as well. I've been spending my days up there volunteering to help out.. They have piranahas, horses, cats, birds, swans, guinea pigs, etc.. You name it.. Normally they just have dogs/cats. It makes me feel good to donate my time to the animals, rather than sitting at home going crazy. It's also very very sad to see these dogs that were peoples pets, wondering why their family left them, and how they ended up in such a strange place. It truly does break my heart to see them scared, and upset because of what they have been through.

I have a lot more I need to say, but I need to go for now. Glad to hear everyone is safe. Hopefully I will be able to add more soon..
Also, thank you everyone for your prayers, and for thinking of us. We appreciate it so much.

[gini]

Thank you for checking in - and THANK GOD everyone is alright. "Things"
can be repaired and replaced slowly - but not your lives.

How wonderful that you are helping out at the Humane Society. I know that each of those animals feels there is an angel among them.

[Catty1]

Good to hear from you!

With all the damage, the power out, and just all the craziness...there were good people helping each other out.

I imagine it will be a while before people can collect themselves - and even have a place to put them - before they can even try to locate their missing pets.

More prayers to your family, and everyone else there.

[Scooter's Mom]

I am so relieved that you checked in! ((Hugs)) for all you have gone through. I know my dad and grandmother said it got pretty rough!

My dad and other family got their power back on last night. Katjaye had her birthday yesterday and she said it was the best birthday present she could have gotten!