Thursday, November 18, 2010

I is for "Ike" - Hurricane Ike - Galveston, Texas

Hurricane Ike hit the Galveston, Texas area a little over 2 years ago, on 9/13/08.  Mr. H and I had decided to stay in our home in Dickinson, which is about 15 miles from Galveston, since we were not under any mandatory evacuation orders. This area has so many hurricane scares each year - our "Hurricane Season" actually runs from June thru November, so unfortunately it's just something you get used to. This is what we woke up to on the morning of 9/13:


We were very lucky that our home did not get damaged, although we had about 2 days of hard clean-up work on our little 1-acre property.  

Can you tell what this is?



This was the kids trampoline, we were concerned that the wind might lift it and do more damage, so Mr. H strapped it to the big trees on our property line....thank goodness he did or it might have become a flying saucer!
Here is the famous Texas City Dike, it looks like part of the Gulf.  It used to be about 5 miles long and full of restaurants, bait camps, great fishing piers and even a nice beach area.




Other people weren't so lucky and their homes and property were badly damaged...


These are some of the most interesting shots, I took these from our boat a couple weeks after the storm.



The most distinct memory I have of the storm though, and I wish I could have gotten a picture of it (or at least a video), was on the night the storm hit... We were sleeping in the living room because Mr. H had already set up the window unit connected to a generator because we knew the power would go out.  The living room is surrounded by windows and the sound of the tree branches scraping the windows was freaking me out because I just knew at any moment one would come flying through the windows, so I got up and went to get in my bed (without AC - but no windows other than french doors leading out to the pool).  As I walked down the hall and looked out towards the pool, it looked like a WAVE POOL!  The wind was causing the water to go from side to side and it really looked cool so of course I had to wake up everyone so they could see too!

I'm linking to Miss Jenny's Alphabet Thursday for the letter "I"!  Be sure to check out all the other cool "I" posts this week!

Jenny Matlock

Well that's it for now, I have more interesting photos but I think I may save those for another post :)

Contact me if you want me to capture your unique personality and have a fun, stress-free photo shoot in the Galveston-Houston area!
Cheers!
Gina Hickman
409-256-9116
Gina Hickman Photography

Galveston Photographer, Senior Photography, High School Senior Portraits, Santa Fe, Dickinson, League City, Friendswood, Pearland, Alvin, Texas City, La Marque, Hitchcock, Seabrook, Kemah, Webster, Clear Lake, Houston, GISD, SFISD, CCISD, SFISD, DISD, FISD, TCISD, LMISD, HISD

8 comments:

mle said...

Oh goodness! what devastation! Your photos serve as a documentation of what it looked like 'before' but also a reminder of how wonderful the 'after' is!!

NatureGirl said...

Wow Wow that is some crazy stuff...
I see you love Texas, but I am not sure I could deal with that!

Unknown said...

You were, indeed, very fortunate!

Bonnie@Creative Decorating said...

After the storm I searched for pictures of the dike. I was shocked to see what happened to it. Have they decided to rebuild it at all? You just can't fight mother nature. She will win every time.

Linda Bob Grifins Korbetis Hall said...

lucky you,
beautiful I take,
those images are solid and thoughtful to look at and more.

Anonymous said...

It is amazing to witness the might and fury of Mother Nature. I'm so glad you were lucky.

Splendid Little Stars said...

Wow! some amazing shots! glad your family was safe. That must have been very scary. I have "weathered" out a few bad storms, but never a hurricane.

Jenny said...

Amazing shots of some horrible devastation.

I'm so glad you all escaped unscathed.

When I read about horrible natural catastrophes like this it makes me love Arizona even more...even though we live through 6 months of triple digits each year...at least it's a dry heat...with no hurricanes...ever!

Thanks for linking.

This was a really interesting post.

A+

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