Now I know what HELL looks like

Just to let y'all know we are alive and ok. We won't have power for maybe months... even when the city is back on we won't be since most of our transformers are under water and it'll take so long to remove all the debris. First off, thank you for all the prayers, I know that is the only thing that kept me and all of my loved ones here, it was hell friends, I was beyond terrified and wasn't sure if we'd make it, seriously. We started getting wind around 8:30 pm, not bad just blowing and by 10:30 it was on... and it didn't stop until 8:30 am. It was coming thru like nothing I have heard before and imagine it is what hell sounds like. Nick has stayed at home to put more things up and decided at 11:30 to get a nap and slept thru his phone ringing, thank God the dog, our hero, licked him in the face until he woke up and when he swung his feet off the couch they were under water to his calves. He grabbed the dog and took off, he looked out the front door and my truck was up to the tailpipe in water. He decided to try to start it and it did and he got the heck outta there. But.. this was in the midst of the storm at 3:30 am. He called me and I listened to him drive to my parents and I never want to do that ever again. I was physically ill the whole time. I taked him into the driveway and I could see & feel the rain and wind finally and it stung like a thousand bees, but he had made it. We just collapsed into each others arms and cried. Thank you Jesus. He managed to get some sleep finally, but I could not. I thought the house was going to come apart and I was terrified. I had been thru Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and this was 10X worse. We never got he eye wall so it was 10 hours of 80 mph wind steady and gusting to 100. Thank God my son slept thru it, if he was awake and scared too, I wouldn't have made it. We had TV until midnight and could see what was going on by the news cast. Then when it went it was really scary. We could hear things hitting the house but not see it since all the windows were boarded up. It was the longest night of my life and I have never prayed so hard. When we were able to come out the next morning there was hardly a tree with leaves. Limbs were everywhere, trees uprooted, just trashed, but the roof was fine and all the vehicles made it. Then we went home. I'll keep this short and you can look at the pics, it is undescribable....you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it. We were lucky, we had only 10 inches after all, and all of our "stuff" most of it was already upstairs and all the boards held. But our new wood floors are ruined, furniture desks, kitchen, my drawer in my stove was full of water...I could go on, but the valuable scrapbooks and all my scrapping stuff were fine. ;) Our parking lot is supposed to be for cars, but now it is full of boats. Just go take a look at my Shutterfly and see for yourself. These are the places I could get to, I will get more today. The pavilion that sits waterfront was totally underwater and it is harly recognizable and I didn't have my camera yesterday to get pics. We have had news crews from all the local national and even Italy and the UK. I believe NBC Nightly News will be broadcasting from our place sometime, maybe tonight. They were scouting for a dry place to set up yesterday, so keep an eye out. I'm going to go for now, not sure when I can check in again, so keep praying for those we haven't heard from yet. Thanks again friends, I can't stress enough how grateful I am for all the thoughts and prayers.
Go check out the pics, there are lots (157)so beware! I'm a scrapbooker after all! Love from Texas!

Hurricane Ike 1
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