Galveston Island, Texas is getting the worst of Hurricane Ike right now. Residents were warned by the National Weather Service that they may face “certain death” if not evacuated from the low lying areas. Some 4.5 million customers are without power already as Ike pushes through Galveston and into the Houston Area. I was just watching some news clips and its very windy and very violent blowings wind with debris flying all over the place. Many TV stations here in South Texas are not working now and have colored bars on them as they are probably based in the Houston Area and are out of service. I guess we will not know until daybreak how bad the storm is.

Houston is the nations 4th largest city, and a wall of water could surge that would be almost 20 feet tall. Galveston a coastal community with an 18 foot storm wall was plowed over by Ike the worst storm to hit Texas in nearly 50 years. In the year 1900 a storm came through Galveston that killed 8000 residents when Hurricane warnings were non existent. This time plenty of time was given to flee but as many as 40,000 residents decided to stay and ride out the storm.

Rescue missions have already began taking place as helicopters are bailing people out one at a time as people changed their minds too late and were already hit with the menacing waters. No deaths have been reported yet but in situations like this it seems that there will be some tragedy and we hope that its very limited as this hurricane is only a few hours from our home. It really makes you think that this kind of thing can happen to your family.

See more information here at yahoo news. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people that are having their lives disrupted by this Hurricane Ike, we had a smaller hurricane dolly come near our home last month and it was enough of a pain just putting up with no power and no running water. We got lucky this time that we did not get hit like Galveston/Houston.

Good luck to everyone reading this and keep safe.

Hurricane Dolly is dropping a lot of rain on us right now in Weslaco, Texas. We have popped our heads out a few times but its very windy and rainy. There are tons of tree branches floating down the street. The palm trees are swaying and dropping palms. We are missing the eye of the storm it is heading in a more North Western path from where we are in Weslaco, Texas. My wife’s family is here from Edcouch/Elsa Texas. Their hometown of Elsa is getting slammed right now wiht heavy rain and winds.

The lights are flickering and the tv station keeps getting pixellated from the digitial signal. We have the news on constantly and are watching the eye of the storm. First it was on a direct path to us but then it headed north and now to the west we are getting the second to third band out of rain out from the eye of the storm.

We are watching the destruction on TV, so far South Padre Island and Port Mansfield are getting hit the worst. The weatherman is on there in a yellow full body raincoat trying to walk in the wind, its pretty entertaining.

As I write this the power just flickered off twice, I lost power two times and the battery backup on the laptop saved this post.

I’ll go ahead and end now before I have to write this again.

My first hurricane experience is rapidly approaching. Its said to be a category 1 hurricane, named Dolly, I guess there recycling names because I remember one from a few years back, it looks like it was only 1996 so they are going back to the old names pretty fast.

We are here at the Red Circle that I added in South Texas near the Gulf Coast, thanks to the NOAA, for the image showing all that nasty stuff headed right for my family.

So I am at work picking up all my computer wires and putting garbage bags on my computer monitors and stuff.. We picked up all the wires off the floor, when we leave were ready to put up sandbags on the door. Were expecting to get a lot of rain as Hurricane Dolly is heading for Brownsville Texas in the next day or so.

At home my wife, is getting flashlights, canned food, snacks, plastic bags, water, supplies, etc.. were in the middle of a move from inlaws house to our apartment in Weslaco, Texas, my wife’s family is in a spot that gets flooded with bad rain in Elsa, Texas, half of our belongings are still in their house luckily we have renters insurance for water/flood damage etc, were crossing our fingers that we stay dry at home, and at work if I have to go in. May get a little time off work but I just heard that where I work at an engineering company were first responders and we are expected to go evaluate damages to the levee systems that we are working on if anything happens storm related.

During lunch we went to a hardware store I got a small maglite flashlight to keep with me for the next few days in case, and when I get off work I am planning on stocking up on some drinking water and household supplies, I am expecting walmart and other stores to be packed, will probably get some gas in the tank in case we need to evacuate but it sounds like it wont be that bad unless the category of the hurricane is changed to a category 2, or category 3 hurricane.

I found this news right now.. we are pretty close to Brownsville, Texas about an hour away so we probably wont be hit by Hurricane Dolly but we should get a lot of rain and maybe some of the wet weather. It sounds like it wont be too bad, where my family is at, but we will see..

“The National Hurricane Center in Miami issued a hurricane watch from Brownsville, Texas, north to Port O’Connor, but so far U.S. government officials had not asked residents to leave the coast. Mexico also announced a hurricane watch from Rio San Fernando north to Matamoros and the U.S. border. Dolly was expected to make landfall Wednesday as a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 74 mph to 95 mph.”

Just be cautions everyone on the Texas Gulf Coast and thanks for reading..