Powering Up

Ten days after Ike made landfall and tore hell out of southeast Texas, our power has been restored. CenterPoint Energy has made a lot of enemies in the last few days, but I'm not one. I've driven around enough to see what the linemen are up against, and I'm just glad we only had to wait ten days...it could have been much worse.
Here in the Planned Community, the big trees were snapped off, uprooted and thrown around like Ike's personal Lincoln Logs. We were among the fortunate ones who only had to clean up limbs and rake trash into piles. There were no windows broken, no holes in the roof, the house is intact.
I've finally seen television and the pictures from Gilchrist, Crystal Beach, and Galveston are of total devastation. It will take a long, long time for life to reach any semblance of normality along the coast.
The things you miss are so strange. Brewed coffee is such an ordinary thing, but if you have instant made with water boiled in the fireplace, you really appreciate Mr. Coffee and Folger's.
I didn't miss television except for the news....I'm a news junkie, and I have been in withdrawal for ten days. I missed the Internet. I even missed being able to go to work. When my cell phone battery finally died, I missed not having anyone's phone number. Remember when you could remember the phone number of everyone in your immediate world? Now I don't even know my kids' numbers. Everyone is on the contact list.
If you've never been through a hurricane, I can't begin to tell you what it does to your stress level. Other parts of the country have blizzards and tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanoes. I've never been involved in any of that action, but I'll bet you wouldn't want to trade disasters.
Hurricanes' destruction just seems to be so wide spread and take so many different forms. What isn't blown to hell is wet and covered in mud and mold.
But it's over and hopefully, it will be another twenty-five years before Galveston takes a direct hit. Maybe twenty-five years will be long enough for Galveston to get back on it's feet.