On Wednesday September 10, 2008, and after much moving around of the cone of uncertainty, weather forecasts were predicting that Houston and Galveston were the likely targets of Hurricane Ike. As Thursday came, it was assured that we were going to take at least some, if not all, of the storm. It had blown over Cuba and entered the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and everyone was warned to get ready. Luckily, we had been getting ready for three years - that was when Rita gave us a pretty good scare before turning north at the last minute and going in around Cameron, LA.
Preparations
Even though we were mostly ready, we still had a few items left to get and do. First, how we were ready. Since Rita, dad and I had been talking and planning and making purchases here and there in preparation for what we were to face. We knew that if we took a direct hit, we would most likely be without power for an extended period of time. As Rita was approaching back in 2005, we panicked and each of us bought two small Honda EU2000iA 2,000 watt generators. They were really expensive at $1,000 each, but I'd been all over town looking for a generator, and I was completely lucky to find these. I was standing in line at Gander Mountain buying ammunition for my various firearms (nobody was gonna get their grubby paws on MY stuff!) when they rolled in a couple of pallets of these generators. I bought one right then. I then called mom (dad was on assignment in Colorado Springs) and within a few minutes she told me to get one for them, too. So we were the proud owners of two generators that we ended up not needing after Rita passed (the power was only out about 7 hours). So what to do? Dad and I talked about it and decided to keep them around for future use, because Houston was due a "big one" at some point in the not too distant future, and we were already ahead of the game with these two great generators (good power levels, clean power, very fuel efficient and extremely quiet). So we were off and running on our disaster plan.
Future conversations evolved into extended power outages, water shortages, gasoline shortages, etc. Mainly, though, we were concerned about long-term power outages and keeping comfortable. Houston's climate is almost inhospitable during the summer months without air conditioning, and hurricanes don't have the courtesy to visit us when the weather's cool and the humidity is low. So we knew we'd need some way to keep the house (or at least parts of it) cool and dry. We bought a Sunpentown 12,000 BTU portable air conditioner. The idea was that we could (relatively) easily move the unit between rooms as needed to cool and dehumidify. Next, we discussed all of the appliances, lights and electronics we would likely want to run during an extended outage. That discussion was concluded with the decision that our two Honda generators would not provide enough electricity to run everything we would want (or need) to run, so we needed to supplement the Hondas with something a little larger. About a year and a half ago, dad bought a Briggs and Stratton 5,550 watt generator. As an interesting side note, we paid about $550 for it - folks were buying them in the days after the storm here for $800. Anyway, after doing the math of wattage draws, we thought that almost 10,000 watts of generating power would be plenty of power to run everything we wanted to run (two refrigerators, a deep freezer, lights, two small air conditioners, several fans, the entertainment system and a laptop or two) with some extra capacity left over. Extra capacity means the generators wouldn't be running under a tremendously heavy load, which in turn means they won't consume as much fuel.
As Ike began his final approach into the area, we filled up the rest of our gas cans (half of them were full because of Tropical Storm Edouard's approach on August 4 and 5) to give us a grand total of 75 gallons of gasoline for the generators. We also topped off the Explorer, so we had another 18 gallons in reserve that we could siphon if needed. I know it sounds like a lot (and potentially dangerous), but we're sure glad we had it, and everything was stored in approved gas containers. That amount of fuel allowed us to go as much as 5 or 6 days before we really needed to start searching for fuel. That was a good thing, because you never know what you'll run into after a storm passes, or how far you'll have to go to get fuel. That amount of fuel ensured that we were not only self sufficient for several days, but also ensured that we could avoid a big chunk of the craziness at filling stations because they either didn't have power, were out of gas or had long lines if they happend to have both gas and power.
We also made another couple of purchases related to the generators and cooling. First, as kind of a last minute decision so I could stay in my room rather than having to bunk with the folks, I bought a small GE 8,000 BTU window unit air conditioner (and boy am I glad I did!). We also needed to get some more extension cords to make sure we could reach everything we needed to power. Finally, and most importantly, we bought a parallel cable for the Honda generators. This cable interconnects two like generators (which we have) and essentially doubles the output to, in the case of our generators, 4,000 watts. This would allow us to run some items with a lot less noise (the Briggs generator is quite noisy) and do it on a lot less fuel because the Hondas are so fuel efficient.
Other errands on the Thursday (9/11) before the storm hit: mom did a bunch of grocery shopping to get us stocked up, and because we had generators and everything, she could raid the produce, meat and dairy sections and virtually avoid the non-perishable items - items that by then most of the stores were either completely out of or running very low on. We already had several cases of bottled water, so we were good there. Dad and I bought the small air conditioner, parallel cable and extension cords, then made the most important stop of all: the liquor store! 
What's a good hurricane if you're not all liquored up? We stocked up on scotch, gin, tonic, beer and wine and our errands were complete. And it was a good thing: traffic was absolutely horrible. Folks had been let off work to prepare, schools were out, and everyone was running around trying to get last minute items.
As Friday rolled around, we made sure all of our flashlights and lanterns were working and had at least semi-fresh batteries (or fresh charges), as we knew the storm was going to come in the middle of the night. We moved some preparation items from the garage into the house to have them at the ready for the following morning. We made sure we had plenty of beer, wine, water and soft drinks cold and that the icemaker was in high gear making ice. As evening rolled around, it was time to clear the decks outside. All the patio furniture and decorations went into the garage, as did all the potted and hanging plants. We wanted to make sure we minimized the potential number of projectiles as much as possible. Some of the patio furniture actually went into the bed of my pickup, where we strapped them down tight with ratchet straps. The final item was to fill some coolers up with water in case we lost water pressure.
With the decks cleared, we were as ready as we could be for the storm (not as ready as we might have been...more on that later), so it was just time to sit around and wait for the storm to come through and do its thing.
Hurricane Ike Passes
We got tired of the constant local news coverage - you've seen it all before: the weathermen doing their thing, the reporters on location trying to do a live report in the howling wind and showing the trees bent and the surf crashing. We knew we were taking this one, and knew that landfall would happen right around Galveston sometime around 2:00 am, with high winds approaching our part of town somewhere around 4 or 5 am. That meant things would start getting crazy around here about that time, and the wind would likely blow pretty good around the house here until around 9:00 am or so. So rather than just sitting around trying to fight off the worry and anticipation of the approaching storm, mom, dad and I watched a movie and got drunk! 
Our neighbors across the street and next door also had a hurricane party of their own that went into the wee hours of the morning.
The power flickered for the first time about 10:45 pm Friday night, so we decided we'd go ahead and get our bedding situations figured out and ready so we weren't fumbling around in the dark with just lanterns. Mom decided to sleep on the couch, dad in his recliner, and me on a blow-up mattress on the floor in the den. All of the bedrooms in this house are upstairs, and we had a concern about winds blowing a tree onto the house, so we all slept downstairs. Mom and dad were out by about 1:30 am, and I was out by about 2:15. The power flickered quite a bit throughout the night, and finally went out for good at 5:30 am Saturday morning (about the time the eye of the hurricane was passing by us). We shut down the TV and stuff (which was on an UPS and had been running the whole time we were initially sleeping), and also turned the two thermostats to the off position so a surge wouldn't damage the big central air conditioners when power was eventually restored. Oh, and on that note, we'd had the thermostats turned way down to let the units get a good head start and get the house cold before the power went off. That way we could be comfortable until the storm passed and we could get the generators running.
As the storm was passing, it was windy as hell outside! My weather station (which was up almost the entire time of the storm's passage) only reported a maximum wind gust of 44 mph, but because of its placement, wasn't as accurate as I'd hoped it would be. It isn't up high enough, and it is too close to structures that can interfere with wind flow. Anyway, the way it sounded, I'm pretty sure we had a few gusts up in the 85 to 90 mph range with sustained winds probably around 75 or so. Here's a graphic I found that shows sustained winds, and my guesses look to be about right. I've approximated the location of our house on the map as well - it is the red dot just to the southwest of the small orange area of 84 mph winds. Also, the black line is the track of the center of Ike. Thanks to abc13.com and Tim Heller for the graphic.
The rain pelted the windows (Ike ended up dropping 7.9 inches of rain here at the house) and the wind made the door howl some - it was pretty creepy. Anyway, needless to say, even with the booze, none of us slept that great that night, and it didn't help that none of us were in our regular beds. The blow-up mattress is OK, but I was still restless and listening here and there to what was going on outside. I'd stir and roll over on the bed and listen for a few minutes before dozing off again. I remember that before the power went out that it was really windy. After the power went out (and about the time the eye was passing), things weren't totally calm, but it definitely wasn't blowing like it had been. Then the eye passed and we caught the back end of the storm and it was windy as hell again. We all finally woke up about 7:45 that morning. It was still a little breezy outside, and the rain was still coming down, but we knew the worst had passed. I went to the garage fridge and got a couple of Cokes for the folks and a Dr. Pepper for me, and we sat around sort of in a daze (or maybe it was just a little hangover...) and talked and watched the tailing fringes of the storm. We also took a peek outside to see if we could see any real damage.
Oh, one other interesting fact provided by my weather station as Ike passed: the barometric pressure. On what weathermen and aviators call a "standard day", barometric pressure is at 29.92 inches of mercury. As Ike's eye passed us by, the lowest barometric pressure my station recorded was 28.59 inches (and I'd made sure it was calibrated properly before the storm passed, so that number is accurate). That's 1.33 inches below "standard" - extremely low barometric pressure! That converts to roughly 968 millibars, and represents a roughly 4% drop in atmospheric pressure around the center of storm circulation.
The Aftermath of Ike
As the storm's fringes were finally passing through, dad and I decided to use the time to get the house "strung up" with the extension cords we would need to run everything we'd need to run during the power outage. We ran two long extension cords upstairs: one for items in their room, and one for things in my room. We branched off of my cord to power a couple of necessary items in dad's office upstairs as well (i.e. this is where their phone system and the "brain" for our TV and Internet connections lives). We also ran a cord to the fridge and coffee maker in the kitchen - this is where we'd also plug in a light for the kitchen. We ran a cord into the garage to power the fridge and deep freezer out there. We ran cords to power the UPS that protects my laptop and other computer/network gear (along with my weather station data collection gear), and yet another one to power the UPS that protects the TV and other entertainment gear. With that done, we rearranged some vehicles in the driveway to clear out a spot under the portacachere (fancy word for carport attached to the garage) so we could set up the generators. It was still raining some, so we decided to set them up there rather than our planned location on the uncovered patio area. Venturing outside, we were also able to survey some of the damage. We were blessed and fortunate, and thus spared a great deal of damage. There was no damage to the house - the only visible damage were the broken tree limbs that blocked our driveway and some other tree debris in the yard. No trees fell on the house, no windows were broken, and as far as we could tell, there was no damage to the roof of the house. Here's a quick picture of what our driveway looked like before we got started with cleanup.
With the relief of that inspection, we fired up the generators and got the portable air conditioner running. We also plugged in all of our refrigerators, as by this time they'd been without power for about 5 hours. Then it was out to visit and swap storm stories with the neighbors (as you can see in the picture above), which were out in force now inspecting their own homes and checking everything out. Then it was cleanup time. I busted out one of our chainsaws and got to chopping up the limb debris to clear the driveway. Once that was done, I was soaked - mostly by the lingering rain as the trailing feeder bands made their way through the area, but also from sweat. It wasn't terribly hot, but it was warm and humid, and I was working pretty hard. Let me tell you how nice it was to be able to come into an air conditioned room! It was heaven! The portable air conditioner was an absolute life saver! And not to mention the cold beer in the fridge!
As the day progressed, we made contact by phone with other friends around town and got their status and story. As expected, most everyone was without power, but surprisingly virtually no one we knew had experienced any major damage. All had tree debris, and a few had portions of fence down, but otherwise everything was fine. A few folks (Monica, Jerry and Lauren and a few others) made their way to our house and even helped with some cleanup, and then more started showing up or called and asked if our generators and ACs were running. Also, there were some college football games going on that evening that a lot of folks were interested in. At that point, we still had the signal coming in from AT&T's U-verse service, so we said, "What the hell? Let's just make a party out of it!" So 15 people ended up at our house that evening to enjoy good food, good friends, good football (everyone's team won that night) and good spirits (both "regular" and the liquid kind!).
Saturday night comes, everyone leaves, and we moved the generators out from under the carport (to help cut down on noise). We installed the GE window unit in my room and moved the portable unit into mom and dad's room. In the interest of courtesy, we tried to run the two air conditioners on the Hondas so as to keep the noise down. Mom and dad had a few problems with the portable AC not wanting to cool, but they stayed relatively comfortable. The little GE gave me snotsicles in my room! I was almost cold in there....until the generators quit about 5:45 Sunday morning. Running the two air conditioners on the Hondas, while possible, was just a little too much for them - especially during the compressor startup phase (which draws the most power). I was awoken by the silence of my AC unit not running (and the rising temperature), but also by the loud KABOOM! of a nearby lightening strike. A front was moving through that promised more rain (we ended up getting another 3.49 inches out of that) and also cooler temperatures and lower humidity in the coming days. By the time I got downstairs, dad had moved the generators back under the carport and was refueling them. At that point, we decided, "To hell with the noise! Several neighbors are running their big ones, so screw it - we're firing up the Briggs!" We moved some cords around to distribute the load better (and plugged the refirgerators back in) and went back to bed. I actually slept until about 9:30 that morning - catching up a little from the previous night's relative sleeplessness and the previous day's activities.
Sunday comes and - NUTS! - both TV and Internet service are dead. The main house phone line is also out, and cell service is spotty at best for mom and dad (they have T-Mobile). I've got AT&T service through my company, and while the signal was weaker than normal, I was still able to text, make and receive calls and also use my cell phone as a data modem for my laptop. Anyway, by this time, mom's going a little stir crazy, and she wants to go and inspect their new house and see if it got any damage. I drove her over there, and that was somewhat of a challenge. The roads were clear, but there were gas lines at a few stations that actually had power, and many of the traffic signals were out, making driving a little perilous. Their new house didn't have any damage, so we came home. Then we fell into sort of a routine of doing a little cleanup, checking on the generators and refueling them as necessary, and generally making sure our electrical systems - such as they were - were all functioning normally. With no TV or Internet, things were a little quiet and boring. Dad and I then decided that we'd go on a scavenger hunt the next day.
Monday 9/15 comes, and still no utility power, TV or Internet, but we were blessed with Mother Nature's cool front and slept comfortably under fans the previous night. We didn't even have to run the air conditioners. As mentioned, dad and I went on a scavenger hunt for two overlooked items that we didn't consider before the storm hit: a good supply of motor oil for generator oil changes, and rabbit ears for the TV so we could at least pick up some local stations. Our hunt took us to Radio Shack, Target and Wal Mart. The Target at Eldridge and FM 1960 was running on emergency power and didn't really have anything we needed. We did get a longer coaxial cable for the rabbit ears there, though. The Radio Shack in the same strip center didn't have power, but they were open and selling large quantities of cell phone chargers. Luckily, they also had one set of rabbit ears, so we bought those. We went to the Wal Mart out 290 at Cypress Rosehill, and they had full power there (as well as gas). We found another set of rabbit ears for Dave and Debbie across the street, and also got the motor oil we needed for the generators. We'd run them enough that it was getting time for an oil change in all three units.
Tuesday 9/16 was another routine day without power, and Mother Nature was still blessing us with lower-than-normal temperatures and humidity. I changed the oil in all three generators Tuesday morning, then used my cell phone as a modem for the laptop to check some mail at work and to also try to find out what Centerpoint Energy was saying about electricity restoration estimates. I knew my company's Houston office had power and connectivity, so I thought that Wednesday would find me commuting down to the Westchase area to get back into the grind of work.
Finally, about 2:15 am on Wednesday morning 9/17, our power was restored! We were just a few hours short of 4 full days without power. The weather remained nice enough through Wednesday 9/17 that we didn't even fire up the central air conditioners until that night. The day's warmth lingered long enough, the humidity was starting to rise, and there wasn't much breeze outside, so I decided to dry and cool the air a little with the central units. Also, when the power returned, so did our TV and Internet service. Yea! I didn't have to commute to the office! Turns out the AT&T service box around the corner requires AC power, and the backup batteries in that box are only good for 16 or so hours - which is why we were able to watch college football (in HD, no less) that Saturday night. After that, things mostly returned to normal. We loaned our generators and air conditioners to friends that were still without power, and picked up all of our extension cords and other power outage items.
Lessons Learned
No matter how much you think about a potential situation and plan beforehand, there are always going to be things you've missed and lessons to learn. First, we learned that we would need to spread our air conditioner loads across the generators - the Hondas won't reliably run them both at the same time. Secondly, you might think you've got enough extension cords, but you really don't. We were so glad that we bought the extra cords we did on Thursday, because we used almost every one we had to get everything we wanted to run plugged in and energized. Third, we should have had more motor oil on hand for the generators. The manufacturers recommend that oil changes occur every 50 hours or so after the break-in period. So every 2 days of constant running, you need to be changing the oil in your generators to keep them in top working order. We only had three quarts on hand - essentially good for a little more than one round of oil changes for our three generators. Fourth, make sure that if you've got some stored gasoline that it has a fuel stabilizer in it. Stale/bad gas can wreak havoc on generator carburators by clogging the jets and causing them to not run. You don't want to be caught in the middle of a power outage with a dead generator (we didn't experience this problem, but some folks we know did). So make sure your fuel supply is less than 2 months old or has fuel stabilizer mixed into it, and never use fuel that's over about 8 months old, even if it has stabilizer in it. Fifth, the best way to hook up a generator to the house is definitely with some sort of transfer switch (automatic if you've got a whole-house standby generator, and manual if you plan to plug in a portable generator when needed). This wires into your electrical service panel and allows a single cord to run from the generator to power regular plugs and switches in the house - and negates the need for most (if not all) of the extension cord mess.
Finally, the one major error we made was not having any window coverings. As the storm was blowing through and I heard the winds and rain, I was concerned about flying debris breaking one or more of the windows. Fortunately, that didn't happen this time, but I would've felt a lot better had we boarded up at least the downstairs windows. During the hurricane offseason, I'll be buying plywood and cutting it to fit the windows. I'll then label what window each piece fits and then seal the wood so the rain doesn't damage them - making them good for multiple uses. I'll then store them on the ceiling joists above the garage. I'll also be using PlyLox or similar mounting hardware. All the downstairs windows are surrounded by brick, so this will keep me from having to drill into the vinyl window frames or into the brick. I haven't yet decided on boarding up the upstairs windows - I don't do heights or extension ladders, so I'm not sure what to do about those yet.
Final Thoughts
This was the first storm any in my family had had to go through. The last hurricane to hit Houston directly was Alicia back in 1983, and we didn't move here until 1990. We had a close call with Rita 3 years ago, and 2001 brought us Tropical Storm Allison that drenched us for several days, but none of them were like this. Needless to say, parts of the experience were nerve-wracking. However, we were blessed and fortunate that we received virtually no damage from this powerful storm, and that our power was restored so quickly. At the peak, power was out to 2.2 million or so customers around the area. As of this writing, there are still close to 600,000 customers without power - a full 11 days after the storm came through. We were also extremely fortunate that we never lost water pressure (thanks Harris County MUD 9!). We were also fortunate that we had a plan in place and that we were able to execute the plan to keep us cool, comfortable, and well fed.
I also wanted to say thanks to our friends and neighbors that came over and helped some with cleanup. Also, we thoroughly enjoyed having everyone over on the evening after the storm, and we enjoyed Dave's, Debbie's, and Alisa's company (and margarita machine!) on subsequent evenings. It was nice having good conversation, good friends, and good food as we endured the days without power, limited TV and Internet.
Finally, for those of you that might think that we didn't suffer at all and what about all the poor people that have it really bad...well, we didn't suffer partly because of the geographic location of our houses, and partly because we had a plan to make it through the extended power outage. And we're so happy that friends and neighbors took advantage of that. However, I feel horrible for the folks that took any type of damage to their homes or property, for those that have struggled because they've been unable to work, and also for the folks that haven't had their power restored yet. My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have suffered in this disaster. In fact, I'm going out right now to do my part and to make a donation to the American Red Cross, the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund, and the Bush/Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund (get more information on the latter two drives here). I would encourage you to do the same. It doesn't have to be a big donation - every little bit helps!
Edit: Just so you know I put my money where my mouth is, I donated $50 to each of the three funds/agencies above.