Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Yikes...IKE!

I wanted to send along an update on how Greg is doing in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Last Thursday, he headed back to Houson three days early to prepare the business for the storm. At the office, he was able to deal with issues first hand, shut systems down, back up data and retrieve important paperwork well ahead of the storm. Unfortunately, he had to spend his birthday away with a dude named Ike (poor baby!)


He stayed in the condo 18 floors up, with hurricane supplies and a video camera, ready for the big storm. According to Greg, it was quite horrible. The wind blew so hard that it seemed that the building was breathing with each gust. Water came in under the huge sliding doors in the living room and he spent two hours sopping it up as the wind continued to blast the rain directly at the doors. He felt like the glass would explode at any moment and he spent most of the night in the closet with no power.

In the morning, he was able to see surrounding streets of the Galleria were under water and wind damage was visible everywhere. By Sunday, his power was restored and on Monday, he went to the office to check on power and water. He arrived to discover that the roof of the building was half torn off and many of the surrounding office areas had severe water damage. In fact, the business next door had over two inches of water in their space. No doubt, there was some heavenly sandbagging going on, because the water quite literally stopped at the doors of ROI Staffing. Greg is hoping to have power restored by the end of the week, so folks can get back to work. Quite amazingly, some of the contractors were back in the saddle as early as the day after the storm. You just can't keep those programmers from pounding out code!

Our friend Melissa who lived next door to us in Cypress sent some photos of the damage on our old street. Most of the problems were due to those darned pine trees...


Our old house...

On our old street...

Many many thanks to friends and family who covered us in prayer. The more Greg has seen over the days following the storm, the more we realize how blessed we are. Compared to so many who still have no power, water and major cleanup ahead, we were relatively unscathed. We continue to keep all of our friends in the Houston area in our thoughts and prayers...can't wait to hear from you ~ hope all is well!

3 comments:

cristina said...

been meaning to check on your old house....i've seen it a few times when we've come in the louetta entrance....

i'm assuming mike told greg we moved into rock creek.... if not, i guess it took ike to spread the news.

i'm currently watching a neighbor's house be de-treed...HUGE pine tree, LOTS of damage. yuk!

talk to you soon,
cris

kimberly said...

Thanks for the update, i saw Aunt Judy Sunday at my moms for lunch and she told us about some of the things you mentioned, i cant imagine being on the 18th floor and having WATER come into my house!!! That alone would be enough to send me packing for sure, im so glad Greg is doing well and on the road to getting back to "normal" keep us posted.
kim

JessicaB said...

I'm so glad things are relatively ok! We were figuring Greg was in Florida during the storm, should have known he would stick around to keep an eye on the office!

We ended up ok as well, still no power though :( Whenever cell service improves I will call so we can have a catch up.

Love yall! Jess B