Hurricane Ike

 

This hurricane struck the Houston, Texas area on Friday, September 12, 2008 and passed through by midday on Saturday, September 13, 2008.  Many people evacuated, but we were not in the mandatory evacuation zone, so decided to stay since it was not going to be a category 4 or 5 storm.

Following the storm, around noon on Saturday, I took these pictures before we started cleaning up the yard.  It doesn't show all the large branches still stuck in the trees that are going to be fun to get out.  Other than branches and parts of the fence being down, all we seem to have lost was some shingles on our garage and maybe a few from the house.

We consider ourselves very lucky with this minor damage.  We had lost electrical power around 1 AM Saturday morning, but it returned around 1 PM that afternoon.  We are one of the few areas in Houston with electricity; CenterPoint Energy estimates that 97% of the Houston area was still without power Saturday night.

 

Looking down the street from our house:

There did not seem to be any major damage on our street; just fences, branches, metal patio covers and other items like that.

 

 

Pictures of the front of the house:

We have a large oak tree in the front yard with two pine trees.  The oak tree had needed pruning before the storm, but now is open.  There are a couple of large branches in the middle that need removal.  The pictures of the left side of our house (facing it) shows where a fence used to be that hid our air conditioner compressor.

In front of our neighbors home, the white line is a flag pole that was knocked over.

 

    

   

     

 

Driveway:

Two of our cars were parked inside the garage, but Courtney's and Conner's were in the driveway.  Smaller branches and leaves were in between our house and the neighbors, with some shingles laying around.  A larger branch ended up between the two cars, but there was no indication of damage.

 

 

Back of the house:

I had boarded up the back windows, even though we have storm windows rated for hurricanes.  This was just extra protection to give us a reinforced room to stay in.  I had taken a frame with small mesh nailed to it (that had came from an outside aviary I had previously had) and braced it at an angle against the back door to help protect it.  The blue pieces on the ground are some scaffolding that I own to help work on replacing the siding on my house.  I had laid them down on the grown to keep them from being blown around. 

 

 

Backyard damage:

The backyard was enclosed by fences on all sides.  Behind the garage is a vinyl utility shed.  There are two trees in our backyard - one being a large sycamore that is around 40-50 feet tall.

I had some of the pieces taken off of the house and garage, when I was replacing the siding, still in the back yard.  They actually helped keep some of the fence in place.  The SmartShed that we have behind the garage did not have any problems - no leaks or even movement.  This was surprising since we had 80+ mph winds for several hours with gusts above 100 mph.  Have to send the manufacturer a note saying how well it did.

The last picture is where a large tree branch (about 15 feet long) went through the fence into the neighbors yard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Information

 
Matthew Beard

10318 Sagegate Dr., Houston, TX 77089

http://www.matthewbeard.com

Email addresses (select one):

Copyright notice: Information contain on this site is the property of the owner and must not be used without written permission.  Please utilize the above contact information for information.

This site was last updated 09/15/08