so there was this kid ike. decided to take a personal vendetta out on my family. it wasn't pretty. i don't know what we ever did to him, but i'm pretty sure "eye for an eye" was an understatement.
first and foremost, thanks to everyone who's been praying for my family and that whole neck of the woods. your prayers and words of encouragement have been invaluable. you will forever have a special place in our hearts, and i pray God repays your kindness with more blessings than you can ever possibly count.
on to the update of ike. i'll start at the beginning -- thursday-ish.
so, it became fairly clear by thursday morning that ike was heading for galveston. it also was fairly certain at this point that it would only really be a high two/low three when it made landfall. so, like most islanders and even experienced houstonians, my parents made the confident decision not to evacuate. if you're not from an area frequented by tropical storms and hurricanes, you probably think this is insanity. allow me to clarify, then. most coastals will tell you that there is really no need to evac for anything less than a strong three. this has always been our standing, is the stance of most islanders/houstonians, and until very recently has always been a fine decision. in an ordinary situation, a hurricane like ike, making landfall as a strong two would not have been a big deal. this is why they estimate about 40% of the island didn't evacuate. for most cat twos, it would never have been a big deal. most unfortunately, ike it seems was not particularly ordinary.
so that's thursday. my parents made an educated decision not to evac. too much hassle (my dad's on a concentrator 24/7, if you weren't aware), and it shouldn't be that big a deal; also understand that the media always exaggerates in these situations about how bad it's going to be. it's what they do best.
friday morning: ike is supposed to make landfall late that night. but during one of my classes i get this text from my mom, "we r going 2 grandmas. the water was getting too high." ((cause that's not gonna distract me for the rest of the day...)) on the island, we anticipate flooding. shoot, a small part of our downstairs gets water when it rains hard. thus, it should tell you that if they decided that the water was getting "too high" that early...well...it's not good news, that's for sure. so they camp out at my grandma's house in south houston. which is, quite frankly, a fine idea anyway, since my grandparents probably shouldn't be left alone in this kind of situation.
friday afternoon: i make the mistake of looking online at precursor pictures. note -- mistake. that freaked me out probably more than anything. waves were already splashing over the seawall. since i'm gonna assume most anyone, if anyone, who ever reads this is not an expert on galveston, or even Texas, history, i'll give ya the quick, condensed, not-quite-adequate version. in 1900, the biggest recorded natural disaster in our nation's history (if i'm not very much mistaken, including katrina) occurred -- on galveston island. to be perfectly honest, they never recovered. before the 1900 storm, they were known as the wall street of the west, surpassing even houston in their economic might and progressive advances in all kinds of areas. only the elite lived there. i say all that only to say that the topography at that time is not the same as it is/was friday. the 1900 storm was a cat 5 -- estimated bigger than katrina. worse, they shockingly didn't have doppler radar. the most the meteorologist could do is guess at the direction of the waves, the wind, and make some estimates based on what they were told by ships at sea. [[an aside, just some info for the back of your head, the sunset that night was legendary. there's no real way of "proving" it now of course, but one of the journalists wrote of an ominous, blood red sunset the night before the storm hit...]] at any rate, the island was leveled. literally. there are a handful of houses that remained that are today maintained by the historical foundation and honored as "1900 storm survivors". but it's a big deal. i've seen pictures. it was sick. there was practically nothing. [[another aside, the balinese room was one such place.]] when the island was leveled, part of the rebuild involved one of the greatest engineering feats of modern history -- they raised almost the entire island 15ft. i do say almost. understand that the west end, which is currently less beach front property as it is...houseboats....is at pretty much sea level. and they know they flood. why anyone would live there, let alone ride out a hurricane there is beyond me. you couldn't pay me...anyway, i said all of that to point out that majority of the island is now at about 15ft above sea level (a concept lost to new orleans), with probably a few random high pockets at most between 20 and 25ft. anyhoo, this is when the seawall was built. it's a concrete wall that runs along most of the island on the gulf side at a height of 15ft, with a slightly concaved in arc to allow for give from the water.
friday night: timing is everything. another bit of common knowledge to anyone along the coast but probably something lesser known to you landlocked losers. this time of year for us, due to lunar cycles and such, creates an extreme high tide. always happens around the equinoxes. fall is extreme high, spring is extreme low. from what i've read (although i don't know how accurate this info is) that means that during high tide, our tides are already between four and six feet higher than normal. (incidentally, this was part of the issue with the 1900 storm. it likewise came in during september's high tide, making landfall the 8-9th of this month 108 years ago.) knowing this, ike came in during high tide -- extreme high tide remember -- bringing a 15 ft storm surge. well, considering that the seawall itself is 15ft, that's not good news. add to that the rainfall, the wind, and the already overly high tide, and most of the island was underwater.
this brings us to saturday. there's really not much to say actually until sunday night. the most i can really say is that it's been a struggle. saturday and sunday were pretty much hell for me (and from what i understand the rest of my family), and even this morning really wasn't much better. the only really notable thing is the support my family has gotten. from the emails and messages and fb posts giving encouragement and support, to the many calls my dad has now received from fellow pastors and churches offering full support and help in any way the second we step back on the island, God has blessed us so much through all of you. and for that my family is eternally grateful. i can't even begin to explain how revolting and devastating it's been to see some of the pictures and stories that have come out. it's got to be one of the most unsettling feelings possible to not know whether your house is there or not. and that's what it's been for us and still is for most islanders. to not know whether i even have a house to go home to come christmas has been about the worst, most anxious, nervous, and unsettled feelings i've ever had to deal with. i spent most of yesterday somewhere between a numb effort to do homework and random, unexpected outbursts of tears. finally last night, after reasoning out some things with myself and crying about it to God for a while, i was reminded of campus church last spring. campus pastor johnnie moore did this whole big series on job. if you know anything about job, well, he was way worse off than me. so i figured if he could find the words to rejoice through his pain, surely i shouldn't be so arrogant as to think God doesn't currently deserve my worship. so i took job's words to heart,
naked i came from my mother's womb,-- job 1:21
and naked i shall return there.
the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.
this is by no means to be misconstrued as some courageous statement or even some "holier than thou" outlook i'm trying to piously portray. i am merely telling you what i chose to take comfort in, and i should add that although i can say that and even believe that, i was and am still a very long ways away from being able to thank God for putting me in this situation. the most i can honestly say at the moment is that i truly believe that nothing happens by accident and everything happens for a purpose. God's will is far superior to mine. from where i'm standing, this whole situation sucks. completely. i hate it. i think about it for long enough and it make me physically ill. but i'm not God. and i'm intelligent enough to realize that i don't see the big picture; He does. and i can't change it. fighting it would be foolish. i might as well accept it. everything i own -- including life itself -- is nothing but a gift from God. He gave it to me, therefore He can take it away at will. and i can question, but i may never in this life know why. and it's not my job to know. it is merely my job to understand that He is God. and i am not.
but i do have good news. this afternoon, noaa released satellite images of the island and the aftermath of ike. and, by the grace of God, my house is still standing. my church, my family's house, the house i'm moving into come december, the other house the church owns, our whole neighborhood -- it's still standing! and you have no idea how much of a weight that is off my chest. we know we have flood damage, but it seems to all still be standing with little to no structural damage. in fact, none of trees in our neighborhood are down, and most of the water has completely receded.
so, that's pretty much my update. this is by no means over. it'll be months. we're not even released to get back on the island yet and actually asses the damage. and while we were extraordinarily lucky, a good deal of the rest of the island was not. the balinese room i mentioned, is gone. wiped clean. the pier i worked on for several summers is gone. other historical landmarks are gone. i mentioned 40% of the island, it is estimated, did not evacuate; the death count is gonna be pretty high. there is no gas, no electricity, no water, and no phones throughout, not just the island, but a great deal of houston metro and the rest of the texas coast line. this is a huge blow to this part of the country and not just because people have lost their houses, but people are going to lose their jobs because the businesses are totally destroyed in certain areas. this is a huge economic disaster and that itself will take years to recover from.
but, please continue to pray for everyone down there. we need it. recovery will be long and slow, not to mention expensive.
oh, an interesting fact, i found the sunset friday night to be fairly intriguing, as well as ominous...
[[this picture was taken by daniel hatmaker. if you see this, daniel, and you want me to take it down, just say so.]]
