Hurricane Ike

Hi all!! Wow.. what a few days I have had...
Ok so I lived in Mississippi, which if you've been following my blog then you already know. If not then short history/reminder: I was born in Louisiana but grew up in Byram, MS. It's about 20 minutes from the capital, Jackson, and about 4 hours from the coast.
So in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit I was lucky enough to be 4 hours from the worst parts of it but still way too close!! We more or less had a hurricane party and sat outside drinking and watching the wind blow like crazy lol. Seriously, we were REALLY lucky. Justin and I lived in Ridgeland, MS at the time in some apartments. My parents (still in Byram) lost power for 2 weeks! My brother, who lives only a mile down the road from them, was without power for even longer. Ours however just flickered on and off a few times, the longest it stayed off was 5 minutes. Our roommate's dad is Mr. Turkey Leg (if you go to the fair you've seen the booth) and he was feeding the power company on our fair grounds so we had TONS of left over yummy food. Everything was closed because of the power outage so really without that food we wouldn't have had anything. So since we had power AND food and were apparently the only people anywhere close to us with power the police department came and ate at our apartment LOL. We knew one of them and he brought his friends along. The worst part was NO ONE had gas for the longest time. There were lines at the gas stations for miles and about 2 hours to actually get to the pump if you did get in line and by the time you did get to the pump they were out of gas. We again got lucky though. My dad has a construction company and needed gas because they had double the jobs from all of the hurricane damage. He drove to Louisiana and found some gas there and bought 300 gallons! So my mom brought Justin and I gas so we could get to work and such once power was back on everywhere. So yeah Katrina wasn't horrible for us but definitely a tradegy for most of the coast/south. So anyway we moved to Texas and never in a million years did I think I'd have to deal with hurricanes where we are.
First there's Gustav... they built it up so much here and made it sound like it was going to be like Katrina. Everyone here freaked out and prepared for the worst. Basically we had some rain and that was it. So when they started talking about Ike we kinda ignored it since they made such a big deal out of Gustav and nothing happened. Then I started watching the news and they said Ike was only a category 3 I think but apparently it was such a complex storm that they were expecting a lot from it. So again I'm more than 4 hours from where this storm is hitting so I'm not too worried. We watched the news all day Saturday and Galveston really got hit hard and Houston looks HORRIBLE. I feel so sorry for all of those people. By late Saturday afternoon we hadn't had anything but a little rain and were making plans to go out and do stuff lol. Then my lights start flickering. We are like wtf?! It's not even bad and the lights are going out?! After about 4 times of flashing off and back on the lights went off and we waited... waited... yeah no lights... My husband is a big baby and is like what am I going to do without tv?! I just grabbed a book and a flashlight and sat down lol. He started calling all of his friends and his dad to see if they had power. No one did. His friend Danny came over and we were just sitting in the dark talking. Then it sounded like the bottom fell out of the sky! It was so sudden and random spurts but the rain and wind just went crazy. Hurricane Ike was actually Tropical Storm Ike by the time it hit us. The center of it hit about 45 minutes from us and then turned and went above us so we got every side of it as is turned around us. It was actually worse than when Katrina went through Jackson as far as the wind and stuff goes. A few trees fell in our apartment complex, some are still leaning over buildings (not ours though) so I hope they cut them down before they fall. We went with Danny and his girlfriend and drove around town and it was pitch black everywhere. Trees were all over the roads and debris everywhere. We saw a few roofs and stuff missing from houses. I don't think we had any deaths here so that's great but there's plenty of damage.
Anyway there was nothing to do so Justin found one of his friends that did have power that was a little further out of town. We went over there and ate and they played video games. We just hung out there til about 1 a.m. or so. We came home, still no power. So we went to bed and Justin got up and went to work this morning. I slept pretty late but when I got up we had power. :)
I ended up going to watch Zachary (little boy I nanny for) because his parents still didn't have power and they wanted to get out of the house. They had a generator hooked up so they had a tv, fans, refrigerator, freezer, and a few lights working. Their stove is gas so that was working too. They ended up going to see a movie since they found a theater open. I was at their house for a few hours and just when I was getting ready to give Zach a bath their power came back on too.
So I guess they are doing a good job at getting all the power and stuff back on here. They said they are doing the center of town and businesses first then working their way into neighborhoods. Good thing we are in the center of town or we could be without power for a few more days. I hope they are working this quickly in Houston and stuff too so those people can get back home. I hope this is for hurricanes around here this year too. They seem to be following me everywhere I go lol!!
Because of my little hurricane experience I'm sooo behind on everything! I had so much stuff to get done too. I'm off work half the day tomorrow so I may be able to get some stuff done but I'm not sure. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have a new collab being released and a freebie to go with it so check back!