Early this morning Hurricane Ike reached us in The Woodlands where we were “hunkered down” in the Drury Inn Hotel along with what seemed like half of Galveston. Last night an 8pm curfew saw everyone locked in (presumably hoping there wouldn’t be a fire) until 10am today.

At 5am we lost power so it was just a case of sitting it out, watching the wind and rain batter the trees and signs outside and waiting for it to pass.

By 12 today we were ready to leave the hotel and travel to our new home, which we had planned to move into today, but now we didn’t know if it would still be in one piece when we got there.

Generally speaking, in this part of the greater Houston area, things weren’t too bad (It’s all relative - Galveston was basically underwater at this point). You just need to find a way around the trees:

And then after a bit of clearing up (well 10 30 gallon rubbish bags and several hours later) all you’re left with is a large tree to move:

Thankfully it fell the way it did, and our neighbour didn’t complain!

The big problem though - no electricity. Us and approximately 1,999,999 other customers in the Houston area. This is from CenterPoint Energy’s website update today:

“Patience will continue to be a key factor. Customers need to be prepared to be without power for up to four weeks and possibly longer depending on the severity of the damage.  Customers need to keep in mind that CenterPoint Energy crews will have limited access to some areas due to flooding and debris.”

And today’s title is a line from Bob Dylan’s 1975 single “Hurricane” which was of course nothing to do with wind but instead about boxing and civil rights (Dylan wrote it after reading the autobiography of Rubin Carter, a middleweight fighter who was charged, falsely in his view, with a triple murder in New Jersey in 1966). Thanks to RM-B for the suggestion...